Hundreds of millions of Americans prepared to say their final goodbyes to the popular app TikTok, following the Supreme Court’s January 17th ruling that allowed for the ban to go into effect. On Saturday night, the app shut down, displaying a message that read, “A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S. Unfortunately, that means you can’t use TikTok for now.” American TikTok users were left both devastated and confused as the app shut down earlier than expected.
Although President Trump attempted to ban TikTok during his first term of presidency, he has recently shown his support for it to stay. He has vowed to issue an executive order following his inauguration on Monday to postpone the enforcement of the new law. However, Sunday morning, TikTok users were surprised to see the app back up and running.
While there are various opinions on the app’s security, one question continues to linger; how long will TikTok remain in the U.S.?
According to CNN, Trump stated that he was considering a 90-day delay in the ban to allow time to discuss a deal to sell the app to a non-Chinese owner. American investors and companies such as Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, and Project Liberty founder Frank McCourt are just a few of the many that have made offers to buy TikTok. Regardless, ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, hasn’t considered selling.
This isn’t the first time the U.S. government has threatened to ban TikTok; rumors surrounding restrictions on TikTok have been circulating since 2020. Despite TikTok’s release in September 2016, the app didn’t gain widespread attention until around 2019. In April 2022, TikTok surpassed Instagram as the most downloaded app, leading U.S. politicians to become skeptical over the ownership of the growing platform and the potential collection of American users’ data.
Ultimately, the future of TikTok remains uncertain, yet it still possesses almost 170 million users in the U.S.. After the app’s brief suspension, users have already resumed using TikTok as usual. Throughout its existence, TikTok has maintained its popularity, therefore it can be inferred that the platform will be missed if it is permanently shutdown.
