Welcome to FTW Explains: a guide to catching up on and better understanding stuff going on in the world. Are you hearing about the possible TikTok ban in the United States and the Supreme Court getting involved? And you’re confused? No problem. We’ve got you covered.
That’s right. TikTok — with its mega-popular personalities, the memes that everyone loves to share and extremely viral videos — could be facing a ban in the United States, with January 2025 marking the deadline for all of this to come to a head.
What’s it all about? Let’s dive in and break it all down for you:
Back in April, President Joe Biden signed a bill that had been passed by Congress that forced TikTok owner ByteDance to sell TikTok within 270 days. Failure to do so would lead to the app being banned in the United States, although Biden could push the deadline back if he saw progress toward a sale.
There are major national security concerns about the app. From USA TODAY:
John F. Plumb, the principal cyber adviser to the secretary of Defense, describes TikTok as a “potential threat vector” to the United States. In 2023, Plumb told a House Armed Services subcommittee that China, using TikTok, might be able to spread misinformation and collect data on a massive swath of Americans.
Army Gen. Paul Nakasone, commander of U.S. Cyber Command, also testified about the dangers of the app: “If you consider one-third of the adult population receives their news from this app, one-sixth of our children are saying they’re constantly on this app, if you consider that there’s 150 million people every single day that are obviously touching this app, this provides a foreign nation a platform for information operations, a platform for surveillance, and a concern we have with regards to who controls that data.”
Because ByteDance wants the court to overturn the ruling. The argument against them — again, per USA TODAY — “states that the legislation’s infringement of free speech rights is justified because of national security concerns.”
Arguments will be reviewed on January 10, just over a week until the deadline.
Is there a TikTok replacement or alternative to use if it’s banned?
I’ve heard things about Lemon8, which is also owned by ByteDance. But what if the ban extends to all of their properties?
It’s a great question, and one that we might be able to answer more clearly after Friday. Stay tuned. Until then, keep scrolling to enjoy those videos … for now.
