Is TikTok Still Getting Banned In The U.S.?

Six months ago, TikTok was on the verge of being banned in the United States for its alleged ties to the Chinese government. Since then, the social media platform’s ban has been pushed back, postponed, and almost completely forgotten about by some. For the time being, TikTok and its massive community of creators and fans seem to be safe from the power of the U.S. government.

TikTok was first targeted by the Trump Administration in 2020, when then-President Donald Trump nearly banned the platform in the U.S. after it was labeled a national security threat. A deadline was determined by the federal government for TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, to sell the U.S. side of the platform, but that deadline passed without any repercussions by the government. TikTok has since encountered other legal issues, such an FTC order for companies like TikTok, Facebook, and Twitter to explain their data collection policies. However, the platform hasn’t faced any legitimate threats of being banned in months.

That may have something to do with the transition from the Trump Administration to current President Joe Biden and the new administration. According to a report by NPR, the Biden Administration backed off the federal pressure on TikTok in February 2021, with the Justice Department indicating in court filings that the case against the platform may be completely dropped. More recently, The Wall Street Journal reported a study by cybersecurity researchers that suggested TikTok is not currently a national security threat to the U.S. With that, it seems that TikTok may not have to worry about the platform’s future – at least not for the foreseeable future.

With Or Without Federal Blessing, TikTok May Be Unstoppable

There is an argument to be made that even if the federal government continued to act in a hostile manner towards TikTok, it may not matter. The platform seems to be riding a limitless trajectory, even as competitors in the social media space scramble to catch up. Twitter, Instagram, Dubsmash, and now YouTube Shorts have emerged with their own spin on TikTok’s short-video based community. To date, though, no competitor has been able to capture the kind of engagement that TikTok continues to enjoy.

Bolstered by outrageously popular creators like Charli D’Amelio and Addison Rae, estimates suggest that TikTok welcomes more than 21 million daily active users on iOS, in addition to 12 million daily Android users. Official numbers haven’t been released by TikTok’s parent company, but the estimates alone point to the overwhelming popularity of the platform. In other words, it’s likely that TikTok was never going anywhere in the first place, it just took a few extra months for the U.S. government to come to that realization.

Source: NPR, WSJ