By Ada Kessler

Social media has grown to have a large role in modern day life. In fact, the average person spends roughly 2.5 hours on social media every day according to soax. These social media platforms offer an easy form of communication among not just friends and family, but people all over the world. There are many different social media platforms people can engage with, but none are so popular as TikTok.

Despite only launching in 2016, TikTok has gained significant popularity due to its short form content that is specialized to each user via the For You Page. Currently, TikTok has over 2.1 billion users according to Exploding Topics and is the social media app people spend the most time on monthly. The United States in particular is 8th in the monthly time spent on TikTok and is the country that visits TikTok the most.

In spite of its popularity in the United States, the United States government has been making moves to ban the app since 2020. This all began in July 2020 when India banned TikTok, which led President Trump to say he was debating banning the app as well. He claimed this would be retaliation for China’s “mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic” according to Associated Press. A few months later in August 2020, Trump issued two executive orders in attempts to ban TikTok.

Following Biden’s presidential win in the 2020 election, however, Trump’s efforts to ban TikTok fell through. They first extended the deadline for the ban on TikTok before letting them slide all together.  The kerfuffle surrounding TikTok died down for about two years until FBI Director Christopher Wray expressed his worry that TikTok could pose a national security threat in December 2022 due to the manipulation of Chinese officials on the app’s algorithm. These concerns stemmed from BuzzFeed, who reported that Chinese ByteDance employees “repeatedly accessed the non-public information of TikTok users.” For reference, ByteDance is the company that developed TikTok.

As a result, in February 2023, the White House gave federal agencies 30 days to delete TikTok from all government-issued mobile devices. A month later, United States legislators held a six-hour congressional hearing with TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew. During this hearing, Chew fervently denied that TikTok was a Chinese tool for gathering American data given that Chew himself is Singaporean.

Once again, the attempts to ban TikTok died down for a bit before resuming a year later. In March 2024, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would ban TikTok unless it sells to a U.S. company. This was only a small part of this bill however, as it was mainly focused on giving foreign aid to Ukraine and Israel, according to CNN. The Senate approved it in April,  and it was sent to President Biden, who signed it. In doing so the act was finalized and the ban was set to go into effect on January 19th, 2025. In turn, ByteDance sued the United States government in May 2024 claiming that the ban was unconstitutional as it violated free speech.

 In December 2024 a federal court upheld this ban, but in the same month, the Supreme Court said that they would hear ByteDance’s case on January 10th, 2025. The day of the hearing, Trump requested that the Supreme Court delay the ban until January 20th when he retook office, but the request was declined. Three days after the hearing, Senator Edward Markey introduced the Extend The TikTok Deadline Act in attempts at giving ByteDance 270 more days to sell TikTok, but the act failed shortly after it was proposed. Then, on January 17th, 2025, the Supreme Court upheld the TikTok ban.  

ByteDance’s only option left to preserve TikTok in the United States was to sell it, which they did not do. So, January 19th, 2025, TikTok was banned in the United States. When people tried to use the app they were met with this message: “Sorry, TikTok isn’t available right now. A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the US. Unfortunately, that means you can’t use TikTok for now. We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office. Please stay tuned!” The app was also removed from app stores with this ban.

Twelve hours after the ban went into effect, however, it was already over. A new message appeared thanking President Trump that also stated the President and TikTok were working together to find a long term solution. On his first day in office, Trump then issued an executive order that delayed the ban for 75 days. This delay is a complete 180 from Trump regarding TikTok given that he planted the seed for banning it. Roughly a month later on February 13th, 2025, TikTok returned to app stores in the United States and Trump said that the 75 day delay could be extended. 

While TikTok’s fate in the United States is still undetermined, things seem hopeful for them, especially given that Shou Zi Chew was present at Trump’s inauguration. TikTok’s battle with the United States government over free speech versus national security has been long and tumultuous, but it may be over soon.