As I write these words, TikTok users in the US, in all likelihood, only have three days left to enjoy the buzzy social media app that became known over the years for viral dances and lip-sync videos before it’s shut off completely here. That’s because bipartisan legislation banning ByteDance-owned TikTok in the US over national security concerns — specifically, as a result of the company’s ties to China — is set to go into effect on Sunday, Jan. 19. And, barring a last-minute reprieve from the US Supreme Court (which doesn’t seem likely) or an emergency deal cobbled together to sell TikTok’s US operation (maybe 1% likelier than a favorable Supreme Court decision) that’ll be the end for the app.
TikTok, according to The Information, is planning to immediately shut off in the US on Sunday. It will disappear from Apple and Google’s app stores, and those who have already downloaded the TikTok app won’t be able to use it anymore.
Honestly, I never thought the ban would get this far, let alone actually come to fruition. Especially because this whole thing started in 2020 under President Trump, whose ideas were so radioactive at the time that many leaders dismissed them outright solely because they came from him. Having said that, TikTok did a lot in the four years since then to hurt its own case; to cite just one example, consider the ominous 2022 headline from Forbes that declared: TikTok Spied on Foreign Journalists.
Before I continue, let me stress one key point that should tell you everything you need to know: TikTok going through with the shutdown would mean it preferred that option over selling to an American or American-friendly entity. Which it would never do, given its connection to China (ByteDance is headquartered in Beijing). That kind of says it all, I think.
At any rate, there was probably a scenario where the ban didn’t have to get this far along, had certain things happened differently. I’ll just point to one — specifically, an episode in 2023 which saw TikTok CEO Shou Chew testify on Capitol Hill, during a hearing in which congressmen grilled him on a variety of points that made them uncomfortable with the app. At one point, Florida Republican congressman Neal Dunn, making a reference to TikTok’s parent company, asked the CEO this: “Has ByteDance spied on Americans at the direction of the Chinese Communist Party?”
Now, any reasonable person should be able to immediately recognize that there is one, and only one, correct answer to that question. Any other response at all, especially any hemming and hawing around the right answer, only digs your hole deeper. I have no doubt that, as they listened to the scene unfold, TikTok’s various communications staffers were silently or even quietly whispering to themselves something along the lines of: “No, congressman. We never have, and we never will.” Simple.
Unfortunately, that’s not the response that Chew offered. When asked whether TikTok has spied on Americans at the request of the Chinese government, he actually replied: “I don’t think spying is the right way to describe it…”
To basically tell the US Congress — which, by the way, almost never agrees on anything, but nevertheless found enough related to TikTok that members agreed to pass bipartisan legislation banning it — “We don’t (air quotes) spy, a different word would be better,” is basically just asking to get kicked out of the country. Indeed, Founders Fund vice president Mike Solana tweeted, following that hearing last year: “I don’t see any way TikTok isn’t banned at this point. Bi-partisan certainty the (Chinese Communist Party) is spying on 150 million Americans. They’re furious. I have never seen them lock-step in a hearing like this.”
