Full Timeline of the TikTok Ban in the US
Whether you use the app or not, you’ve probably heard a thing or two about the “TikTok ban.” It’s true: President Biden signed the legislation Wednesday after an unusual bipartisan effort in both houses of Congress. How did we get here and will TikTok really go away forever?
A very brief history of TikTok
TikTok wasn’t always TikTok. The app that so many Americans know and love began as Musical.ly , an app designed to share 15-second lip-sync videos. Musical.ly existed in this form from 2014 to 2018, when its new owner, ByteDance, renamed the app TikTok .
After the rebranding, the app’s popularity skyrocketed around the world, especially in the United States. According to ByteDance , the app’s user base increased by 1,239.29 percent between 2018 and 2023. That’s from 11.2 million to more than 150 million. What started out as an app for young people to send lip-sync videos to their friends seemed to turn into an entertainment revolution overnight.
TikTok was ByteDance’s second video app venture: its first app, Douyin, is still a Chinese-exclusive app to this day. In many ways, Douyin is a close cousin to TikTok: users watch vertical videos delivered to them through an addictive algorithm. Like TikTok, Douyin relies on advertising and shopping to drive profits. However, contrary to what you might think, Douyin is actually ByteDance’s main source of revenue, accounting for about 80 percent of the company’s $54 billion in revenue in the first half of last year. The remaining 20 percent came from TikTok, which is extremely popular around the world.
Why is TikTok a security risk?
Of course TikTok is popular, but so are many other apps. Why would the US government single out TikTok rather than, say, any of Meta’s products (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp) or something like Snapchat, many of which Americans are addicted to? In short, the Chinese government.
ByteDance is a Chinese company and must comply with Chinese corporate laws. These rules are quite strict: for example, the Chinese government not only has a party branch within ByteDance , which is standard protocol for the country, but also has a seat on the company’s board of directors. Additionally, some laws, especially the National Intelligence Act of 2017, require companies to share data with the Chinese government and hide the fact that they are doing so.
As such, lawmakers and intelligence agencies are concerned that American user data could end up in the hands of the Chinese government. TikTok, like most social media apps, collects a lot of data , including names, addresses, email addresses, IP addresses, contacts, messages, location data, platform usage, etc. Although everything from Meta to Snapchat. collect similar information, they are not based in another country with complex, sometimes hostile geopolitical differences.
This also raises concerns that TikTok is manipulating the content seen by American viewers. Yes, some lawmakers are very concerned about the way TikTok is publishing videos about the war between Israel and Hamas, which has led some users to believe that the government doesn’t like the lack of control over the narrative in this case. But TikTok’s problem goes beyond that: remember Douyin? The Chinese government is very strict about the content it allows to be shown to children and teenagers, placing more emphasis on educational content. While few are calling for TikTok to censor all non-educational content for users under 18, the current model of manipulation raises concerns about how TikTok could theoretically shape what American users see to benefit the Chinese government.
TikTok ban timeline
U.S. government officials have raised public concerns about TikTok as a national security threat since at least 2019 . At the time, TikTok suspended a user’s account in New Jersey: The user claimed he was banned after posting about the Chinese government’s persecution of Uyghurs, while TikTok claimed the ban was for unrelated reasons and the video in question was taken down. closed due to “human moderation error.” Lawmakers also raised concerns about how TikTok could potentially share American users’ data with the Chinese government, although there were no known data breaches at the time.
In 2020, the app came under the crosshairs of the Trump administration: In his executive order, Trump gave ByteDance two options: sell TikTok to an American company or see the app banned in the US (Sound familiar?) At the time, Microsoft was in talks to buy the app, but Oracle was the chosen one partner who will take the initiative . However, the sale ultimately did not happen: in December 2020 , the courts blocked the executive order , so ByteDance was off the hook.
But Oracle still had a role to play: In 2022, TikTok , through Project Texas , began transmitting all user data in the US through Oracle servers as Oracle reviewed TikTok’s algorithms and moderation policies for any evidence of tampering or interference by the Chinese government. But 2022 wasn’t the year TikTok found favor with the US government: the same year Project Texas launched, ByteDance employees scraped the TikTok accounts of US journalists to obtain their IP addresses. The company looked for the sources of the ByteDance leaks reported by these targeted journalists.
In December 2022, the Biden administration banned the use of TikTok on federal devices, months before TikTok CEO Shu Zi Chu testified before Congress , and the chaotic scene left lawmakers looking completely out of touch and alienated, undermining some legitimate concerns:
Despite Show Tzu Chu’s best efforts to portray TikTok as disconnected from the Chinese government, we learned in July 2023 that some US user data was indeed stored in China . This data related to creators who are paid for the content they post, not regular TikTok users, but TikTok nonetheless stored information from these creators, such as Social Security numbers and tax forms, in China. That year , 39 states followed the Biden administration’s lead and banned TikTok on government devices. Montana even tried to ban the app entirely in the state, but a judge blocked that ban last December .
When the House of Representatives began to get serious about a possible crackdown on TikTok, the company panicked. Chu posted a message on the platform asking users to ask their congressmen to save the app. TikTok fans, as expected, flooded Congress with phone calls . According to The New York Times , this scared the hell out of lawmakers—not because they thought they were doing the wrong thing, but because it showed how much influence TikTok had on its users. The election campaign backfired and actually accelerated the passage of the law.
After years of debate and discussion , the US House of Representatives passed a bill that would force ByteDance to sell its stake in the app to an American company, tying the legislation to a $95 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel and the Gaza Strip. The House passed the bill by a vote of 352 to 65, a rare bipartisan agreement. And while the bill’s fate in the Senate was far from certain, that chamber also passed the bill as part of a bipartisan initiative in April . The President quickly signed a law focused primarily on international assistance.
So, is TikTok dead in the US?
No. In fact, his fate is far from certain. What we do know is that you can continue to abuse TikTok to your heart’s content until at least January 2025: While the original House bill called for ByteDance to be sold or banned within six months, the Senate extended that up to nine months. President Biden also has the option to extend the deadline by 90 days if ByteDance appears to be seriously working on sales. So no matter what, this won’t be a problem until next year.
This means that the app will be heavily used in the 2024 elections. We’ll have to see how this plays out and how TikTok does (or doesn’t) influence voter opinion heading into November. If TikTok is the national security threat the government believes it is, it’s going to be one hell of an election season. The videos will no doubt be juicy ahead of a possible release in January.
But TikTok won’t have to leave the US if ByteDance sells its products to an American company. So far, ByteDance has made it clear that it will not sell , but if it wants to, it has a choice. Former Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin is interested in buying TikTok , as is former Activision CEO Bobby Kotick and investor Kevin O’Leary . Perhaps Oracle or Microsoft will make an offer, but nothing is known yet.
Don’t rush to write TikTok’s obituary just yet.