This article was last updated on January 21, 2025
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TikTok is not black in the US, but also in gray area after Trump’s intervention
The new American President Trump has signed a decree with which he wants to postpone the ban on TikTok. Shortly after taking office, he instructed the Justice Department not to enforce the US ban for the next 75 days, but TikTok is entering legal gray area by going along with it.
The American president hopes to give the company behind TikTok more time to find a suitable American buyer so that the platform can remain operational in the US. “I have a soft spot for TikTok,” Trump said. “This gives me the right to sell or ban the app. We will decide that later.”
TikTok in gray area
The law banning TikTok states that the US president can postpone the ban for 90 days. The deadline for this was Sunday, one day before Trump took over from Joe Biden.
Trump calls the “unfortunate timing” an obstacle to preventing the abrupt closure of TikTok. By instructing his justice minister not to enforce the law, he wants to give his government more time to determine “the right way forward.”
It appears that ByteDance, the Chinese company behind TikTok, is operating in a legal gray area by making the app available again in the US. Just last Friday decided the highest US court that the ban could continue on Sunday. The app is still banned by law, but Trump promises that his government will turn a blind eye for the time being.
On black
This weekend, TikTok actually went black in the US, shortly before the ban actually went into effect. Americans who wanted to watch TikTok videos were told that the app is inaccessible as a result of the law.
After Trump announced on Sunday In order to take immediate action as president, ByteDance made the app available again. On Sunday, American users received a message that the app was accessible again “as a result of President Trump’s efforts”, although Trump was not yet the American president at the time.
App cannot be downloaded
Although the 170 million Americans who already had the TikTok app on their phones can watch videos again, the app has not been available for download in the United States since the ban. Apple and Google removed TikTok from their app stores on Sunday.
It is unclear whether TikTok will return there now that Trump has signed his presidential decision. The law banning TikTok states that Apple and Google could be fined $5,000 per user if they make TikTok available despite the ban. The fine for the two companies could amount to hundreds of billions of dollars, a huge financial risk that experts say is based on little legal certainty.
Trump says he wants to give the United States half ownership of TikTok, which would give the social medium “approval” to remain active in the US. ByteDance has stated several times that TikTok is not for sale.
The TikTok ban in the US
US President Joe Biden signed the law banning TikTok on April 24, after it was passed by a large majority of both Democrats and Republicans. The law was passed because the US fears that the Chinese state can exert malign influence through the app.
According to the law, TikTok could only remain active in the US by selling the American branch to an American party. The deadline for this was January 19. Biden could have postponed that deadline by 90 days, but that would have required a solid plan for such a sale. That plan was missing.
Yesterday, Biden handed over the baton to Donald Trump, who became president for the second time. During his first term, Trump strongly supported a TikTok ban. Now he says he will “save” the app and praises the app because it would have helped him attract many young voters.
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