The Forum

Around 9:30 p.m. CST on Saturday, Jan. 18, TikTok became unavailable in the U.S. hours before a ban on the app would come into effect on Sunday. However, at roughly 11 a.m. CST on Jan. 19, only half a day later, U.S. users who still had the app downloaded on their phones were able to access the app again. During this brief shutdown, when users in the U.S. tried to use the app, they were greeted with a message reading, “Sorry TikTok isn’t available right now.” The message went on to say, “A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S. Unfortunately, that means you can’t use TikTok right now,” and “We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office. Please stay tuned!”

While TikTok was down, Donald Trump, who would be inaugurated a day later on Monday, Jan. 20, wrote on his social media platform Truth Social that he “will issue an executive order on Monday to extend the period of time before the law’s prohibitions take effect,” and he clarified that “the order will also confirm that there will be no liability for any company that helped keep TikTok from going dark before my order.” As of writing, TikTok still cannot be downloaded through the app store on Apple or Android devices, meaning that new users or people who uninstalled TikTok are still unable to access the app on their mobile devices.

U.S. users who returned to the app after service was restored were welcomed back with a new message praising Trump, which said, “Thanks for your patience and support. As a result of President Trump’s efforts, TikTok is back in the U.S.!” It is important to note that Donald Trump was not yet president, and would be inaugurated a day later. The outgoing Biden administration had previously indicated that it would not enforce the TikTok ban, which would take effect shortly before then-President Joe Biden would leave the White House, leaving enforcement to the new Trump administration.

The law banning TikTok was signed by Biden back in April, 2024. The law, dubbed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act (PAFACA), received wide bipartisan support and was passed as part of a large appropriations bill that also provided foreign aid for Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan. Under the law, TikTok, or any other app deemed by the law to be owned by a “foreign adversary,” must be sold by its owner or be banned in the U.S. TikTok is owned by China-based ByteDance, and lawmakers were concerned that the app could collect sensitive data from Americans and share it with the Chinese government during a time of tense relations with the country. TikTok challenged the law that would ban the social media app in court, but the Supreme Court ultimately upheld the ban.

Companies that continue to distribute TikTok after it’s banned would face hefty fines of $5000 per user they help access the app. For Tikok’s roughly 170 million American users, tech companies in the U.S. could collectively face a penalty of about $850 billion divided between them if they broke the law.

One of the many executive orders Trump issued on the first day of his second presidency was a 75-day delay on the enforcement of the TikTok ban. The order states that Trump’s administration will “pursue a resolution that protects national security while saving a platform used by 170 million Americans,” instructing the attorney general and the Department of Justice to not enforce the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act for 75 days. Trump’s pledge to temporarily prevent TikTok from being banned has faced scrutiny by certain members of his own party. On January 19, Republican Senators Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Pete Ricketts of Nebraska issued a joint statement criticizing efforts to postpone the ban: “There's no legal basis for any kind of ‘extension’ of its effective date. For TikTok to come back online in the future, ByteDance must agree to a sale that satisfies the law’s qualified-divestiture requirements by severing all ties between TikTok and Communist China.” Furthermore, some policy experts question Trump’s authority to temporarily suspend enforcement of a law passed by Congress. Sarah Kreps, the director of Cornell University's Tech Policy Institute, said that “executive orders cannot override existing laws,” and that it’s not clear whether Trump can issue such an extension for a law that's already gone into effect.

Trump’s new position on Tikok is a significant shift from the president’s previous stance on the app. In August 2020, during his first presidency, Trump issued an executive order attempting to ban TikTok, citing threats to “the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States,” and alleging that TikTok “reportedly censors content that the Chinese Communist Party deems politically sensitive, such as content concerning protests in Hong Kong and China’s treatment of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities.” The order was later blocked by a federal judge and rescinded by Joe Biden after he took office in 2021. 

Between Trump’s executive order and tech companies removing TikTok from their app stores, the popular social media platform has been left in a state of limbo. Kreps, of the Tech Policy Institute, told ABC news, “at this point, anything is possible.” Ben Sperry, a senior scholar of innovation policy at the International Center for Law & Economics described Trump’s extension as occupying a “gray area.” The newly-inaugurated president promised to spare tech companies from punishment if they continue to host TikTok, but the legality of this offer seems uncertain, and companies who provide access to Titkok under the order could risk billions in fines. Trump has floated a potential joint venture where the U.S. will own a 50% stake in the app, but it’s not clear whether ByteDance, which has been previously unwilling to sell their premier software, would accept such an offer or sell the app at all within Trump’s 75-day reprieve.