TikTok admits things look bleak with the app likely "to go dark" on Sunday
The TikTok saga is about to come to an end. With over 170 million monthly users in the U.S., the short-form video platform became one of the most popular apps in the U.S. However, U.S. lawmakers were concerned that the Chinese company that owns TikTok, ByteDance, was collecting the personal data of users, especially children, and turning it over to the CCP. Another concern voiced by U.S. lawmakers was that the app gave the Chinese government a way to spread propaganda to children and teens in the states.
The last two U.S. presidents, Donald Trump and Joe Biden, wanted TikTok to sell to an American company. Trump threatened to ban TikTok in August 2020. Biden signed a bill into law last April that gave TikTok until January 19th to find a U.S. buyer or shut down. In a surprising turn of events, Trump now loves TikTok because he discovered that he's a star on the app, and because it helped deliver the youth vote to him.
The last hope that TikTok had was shot down this morning when the Supreme Court decided not to overturn the law signed by Biden putting TikTok into its current predicament. The Supreme Court said the law did not infringe on Americans' First Amendment rights. U.S. lawmakers have been hoping for an opportunity to delay the ban in hopes of finding a U.S. buyer for the app. One obvious solution would be for the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, to add TikTok to X taking the app out of the hands of China's ByteDance.
"TikTok’s scale and susceptibility to foreign adversary control, together with the vast swaths of sensitive data the platform collects, justify differential treatment to address the government’s national security concerns."-U.S. Supreme Court
Since Musk appears more than willing to help Trump when needed, this would be a perfect time for Elon to get involved. Even if Musk were to simply state that he was interested in TikTok and have a serious sitdown with ByteDance, that might be enough to activate the provision in the law that calls for a 90-day delay in pulling the plug on the app as long as TikTok can prove that it is working on a deal that results in ByteDance giving up its ownership of TikTok. There also must be "evidence of significant progress" toward a sale and this progress must be sealed with "relevant binding legal agreements."
TikTok posts a tweet with its latest statement. | Image credit-X
On Friday, TikTok posted a statement saying that the Biden administration and the DOJ "failed to provide the necessary clarity and assurance to the service providers that are integral to maintaining TikTok's availability to over 170 million Americans." TikTok went on to say, "Unless the Biden Administration immediately provides a definitive statement to satisfy the most critical service providers assuring non-enforcement, unfortunately, TikTok will be forced to go dark on January 19."
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