TikTok is officially poised to end its operation in the United States later this month barring a last-minute change from the U.S. government. For over a year, the U.S. has been in the process of banning TikTok outright unless the social app’s parent company, ByteDance, sold it off to a new buyer. This law looking to implement a TikTok ban passed the U.S. Senate and Congress last spring and was later signed off by President Joe Biden. Now, as ByteDance has continued to refuse to sell TikTok, it will have to begin the end of the social platform’s use in under two weeks.
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Reported by CBS News, representatives from TikTok have today said that they will proceed with shutting down the hugely popular social media app in the U.S. only ten days from now on January 19th. While TikTok will remain available in other regions, the United States is one of its biggest markets in the world and would represent a massive blow to the app’s incoming revenue. Those at TikTok continue to assert that such a shutdown of the platform violates the First Amendment, but these past arguments have continued to be shot down by judges ruling over the case.
The only hope that TikTok has at this point of not shutting down lies with the U.S. Supreme Court. At the end of December, the Supreme Court announced that it would be hearing arguments to consider an injunction for the law banning TikTok. These arguments will be heard this Friday, January 10th, at which point the Supreme Court will have to come to a decision on if it should intervene. This decision will have to come quickly, though, as TikTok doesn’t have much time left to continue its U.S. operations.
The other hope for TikTok potentially remaining active in the U.S. lies with President-elect Donald Trump. In the wake of winning the 2024 Presidential election, Trump reversed his previous stance on TikTok and said that he would now look to oppose a ban. This change in course from Trump came in the wake of him praising the app’s ability to reach younger voters throughout his most recent campaign. Still, Trump won’t officially take the office of U.S. President until January 20th, which might be too late to keep TikTok from going offline. Whether or not it could then return at a later date remains to be seen.
