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The US Supreme Court has confirmed that the network distribution on US territory by app stores will be banned on January 19 unless the Chinese company sells its American subsidiary by then Decryption.
here you go, that was my life, thanks for spending so much time with me, I hope you enjoyed it – Me, yes! These days, like many of her fellow content creators on TikTok, Kouvr Annon, a young American who has been showcasing her daily life as a model and influencer since 2018, was preparing to say goodbye to her 15 million subscribers.
On January 19, barring any last-minute surprises, the social network should be banned on the territory of the United States, as the American Supreme Court confirmed this Friday, January 17.
Why this ban?
American political leaders have been concerned for several years about the massive success of TikTok (170 million users claimed in the United States in 2024), owned by the Chinese company ByteDance. In 2020, Donald Trump, during his first term, had already wanted to ban the platform, suspecting it of sharing its users’ data with the Chinese authorities. Still, TikTok had managed to have the order suspended by the courts, and Joe Biden had finally revoked the decision in June 2021.
This did not prevent the Biden administration, a year later, from prohibiting the use of TikTok on all its employees’ phones for security reasons. Then, in February 2024, the White House returned to the charge by supporting a bipartisan law, the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act (Pafaca), which prohibits “distributing, maintaining or updating” any application controlled by “foreign adversary countries” , such as North Korea, Russia, Iran or China.
After the text came into force, TikTok therefore had until January 19 to sell its American activities, failing which the social network would be banned from American territory.
What remedies have been taken by TikTok?
As in 2020, TikTok has obviously engaged in a legal battle, arguing before judges in different instances that a ban contravened the freedom of expression guaranteed by the famous First Amendment of the American Constitution.
But this time, at first instance and on appeal, the Chinese company was dismissed. On January 10, before the Supreme Court, ByteDance’s lawyer again tried to limit the debate to this restriction on freedom of expression: “My opponents worry that the ideas that appear on TikTok could lead Americans […] to think something they should not think.
This notion as a whole is in conflict with the First Amendment.” But for the nine justices of the Supreme Court, this was not convincing enough: “Congress determined that the divestment was necessary to meet well-founded national security imperatives in light of TikTok’s data collection practices and its relationship with a foreign adversary ,” they wrote.
Is there still a chance that the ban will not take place?
TikTok has therefore exhausted all legal avenues, but may still decide to fold and sell its American subsidiary (well, if you hurry).
Billionaire Frank McCourt – yes, the same billionaire who owns Olympique de Marseille – has officially been in the running for several months, and he has just been joined in his project by Canadian businessman Kevin O’Leary, who would like to make it (hello Musk and Zuckerberg) a “platform very favorable to freedom of expression”.
Fun fact, just a few days ago, O’Leary was playing golf with Donald Trump…Another possibility, according to Bloomberg , which cites anonymous sources , is that “senior Chinese officials have reportedly begun discussing contingency plans for TikTok as part of a broader discussion about how to work with the Trump administration, and one of those plans involves [Elon] Musk.
Bloomberg doesn’t seem to have much more information, however, specifying in particular that it does not know “whether Musk, TikTok and ByteDance have had discussions about the terms of a possible deal .” For its part, TikTok indicated that it “is not in a position to comment on what is pure fiction . “
One thing remains unknown: the day after the deadline for the sale of TikTok will be January 20th… and therefore the inauguration day for Donald Trump, who will begin his second presidential term. However, at the end of December, this same Trump spoke out in favor of suspending the ban .
A turnaround compared to 2020, no doubt because in the meantime he has found a huge audience
on TikTok – on January 3rd, he boasted about his billions of views, with a graph accompanied by
the caption: Why would I want to get rid of TikTok?
In a press release , Joe Biden’s spokesperson indicated that given the timing of the Supreme Court’s decision, it will be up to the Trump administration to see how it wants to implement the law. But will the unpredictable ex-former president have the legal means to not enforce it? Nothing is less certain – at least not without provoking new battles in the courts…
What will happen to US users if banned?
It’s not the use of TikTok that will be banned, but its distribution through app stores like Apple’s App Store or Google’s Play Store – which will prevent updates and new installations. But according to The Information, TikTok is preparing to go beyond the law, making the app completely inaccessible from January 19 for its American users: all you’ll see is a message linking to a website explaining the reasons for the shutdown. However, it will be possible to download an archive containing all of its content published on the platform.
In India, where TikTok was banned in 2020 for much the same official reasons as in the United Statesprivacy and security concerns—and amid a trade war with China, most users have migrated to platforms that also offer short videos,such as YouTube with its “Shorts” or Instagram with its “Reels. In recent days, many American Internet users have been passing tips to each other via the hashtag #TikTokrefugee, and, in a spirit of contradiction, favoring another Chinese app called Xiaohongshu (“little red book”), which even topped the download charts.
And what about the TikTokers in all this? They are obviously going to lose a lot in this story, including revenue from an advertising market estimated at $4 billion.The smartest ones were still careful not to put all their eggs in one basket.
Kouvr Annon, the influencer mentioned above, is followed by three million fans on Instagram and six hundred thousand on YouTube.In her latest TikTok video, she didn’t seem to be overly stressed, saying: “I am determined not to lose any of the people who follow me on this app. Before going to film herself in an appliance store buying a new camera.
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