Donald Trump's win in the presidential election has folks wondering, “What does that mean for the TikTok ban?”
President Trump has been a major flip-flopper on the issue during the past decade:
- Trump was actually the first U.S. President to initiate the calls to ban TikTok, a movement that lost momentum because he didn't win re-election in 2020. At the time, he raised concerns about the Chinese Communist Party potentially gaining access to Americans’ data.
- Flash forward to his 2024 campaign, and Trump sings a different tune. This time around appearing more concerned with how a TikTok ban would benefit Meta. He told NBC in March, “Without TikTok, you can make Facebook bigger, and I consider Facebook to be an enemy of the people.”
- Trump actually joined TikTok this past June, posting his first video from a UFC event in New Jersey.
- He later posted on Truth Social in all caps, “FOR ALL OF THOSE THAT WANT TO SAVE TIK TOK IN AMERICA, VOTE TRUMP!”
(Isn't that supposed to read, “For all of those who want to save TikTok…” instead of “For all of those that want…”? Who is the appropriate relative pronoun when referring to people, while that is generally used for objects or things. But that's neither here nor there. I'm no grammar perfectionist either, as those who read this newsletter are aware.)
President Biden signed off on a bill in April that gave ByteDance nine months to sell the platform or face a ban on January 19, 2025, the day before Trump's inauguration. However ByteDance has the option of pursuing a 90-day extension, which would put the decision more in Trump's hands.
ByteDance is currently challenging the law in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, making a free-speech argument against alleged national security concerns. The case may ultimately end up in the Supreme Court.
Legal experts have casted doubt as to whether Trump, who pledged during his election campaign to “never ban TikTok,” can actually overturn the decision. G.S. Hans, a clinical professor of law at Cornell Law School, told Business Insider, “Because the law was enacted by Congress, I'm not sure how much wiggle room a future Trump administration would have to ignore it.”
Then again, the Republican Party has secured control of both the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives, so it may not be as hard as he thinks.