You'll be able to use TikTok on January 20 even if it gets banned on January 19: here's how

Are you counting the days to January 19, 2025? That's when TikTok – the disturbingly popular short-video app that 170 million Americans use monthly – is about to get banned. The good news is that you'll be able to watch those precious helium-voiced, slowed-down, lip-sync, cardboard-cutout, soul-numbing, twelve-second videos on January 20.

Joking aside, TikTok will not disappear right away. Let's take a step back and see why and how.

As you probably know (if you follow the TikTok saga closely), just some days ago, TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, filed an emergency motion, seeking to delay the law that bans the app while awaiting a Supreme Court review.

Now, the Department of Justice (DOJ) counterstrikes. The DOJ urged a federal appeals court late Wednesday to reject TikTok’s emergency request to temporarily halt a law requiring its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to divest the app by January 19 or face a nationwide ban, Reuters reports.

ByteDance warned that without intervention, the law would effectively shut down TikTok, a platform with a huge audience, jeopardizing one of the country’s most prominent digital speech forums.

In contrast, the DOJ argued that delaying the law would undermine national security, asserting that "continued Chinese control of the TikTok application poses a continuing threat to national security". Tough words.

The DOJ claims that if the ban takes effect on January 19 it would "not directly prohibit the continued use of TikTok" by users who had downloaded TikTok. However, the DOJ said the effect of the law "will eventually be to render the application unworkable".

Last Friday, a panel of three appeals court judges upheld the law, leaving ByteDance with six weeks to divest TikTok’s US operations or face a ban. TikTok and ByteDance have pointed to President-elect Donald Trump’s opposition to the ban, suggesting that a delay would allow the incoming administration to reassess the policy.

If the Supreme Court does not intervene, TikTok’s future could hinge on President Joe Biden’s decision to grant a 90-day extension of the January deadline, followed by Trump’s potential handling of the issue after taking office on January 20.

It sounds pretty messed up, right? To make matters even more complicated, let's not forget that Trump, who unsuccessfully attempted to ban TikTok during his first term in 2020, stated before the November 2024 election that he would oppose any ban on the app.

Personally, I don't think that humanity will lose anything of substantial value if TikTok is rendered unworkable in the US (in the whole world, actually) – but I do have concerns about a government that shuts down an app under such pretexts.

To me, the "TikTok is a Chinese spying app" or the "TikTok is pretty bad for kids" arguments in support of an eventual ban are laughable. What about Facebook, Instagram, and the rest? Are you sure these platforms are not deeply integrated with three-lettered national agencies? Or that they're OK to be used by minors?