The U.S. ​government, under the backdrop of bipartisan apprehension about data security and foreign influence, has followed through on legislation calling for TikTok to either divest from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, or face a ban. Though the ban has come and gone, the whiplash may have rendered users and non-users alike confused as to what actually happened.

In April 2024, President Joe Biden signed a bill requiring ByteDance to divest TikTok, emphasizing the platform’s perceived threats to national security.

The U.S. government argued that TikTok could be coerced to share sensitive user data with the Chinese government, given China’s national security laws that compel companies to assist in intelligence operations.

According to ABC News, in 2024 lawmakers raised alarms about the platform’s ability to gather extensive data from its approximately 170 million American users and the potential for the app to manipulate content. 

The law stipulates that if a sale to a non-Chinese buyer is not completed by the deadline, the app would be banned, with significant fines levied against any platform that continues to host TikTok.

TikTok said it had invested heavily in safeguards to protect U.S. user data and that no evidence of it sharing data with the Chinese government exists. In its judicial reasoning, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld the law despite those assertions strengthening the government’s position that national security risks can be used to justify action against TikTok.

TikTok’s  legal department has argued  that the law is based on the theoretical and inaccurate premise of threats rather than proof of them, highlighting that the same kind of scrutiny is not applied to many other tech companies in the United States, including American ones.

Some expected the Supreme Court to cite First Amendment issues and the facts underlying the government’s assertions, however, the legal case still advanced.

From the get go, the prohibition posed concerns regarding freedom of expression and the intersection of technology, with norms as well as the intricate dynamics between the United States and China relations. 

Fast forward to present day, the ban did indeed occur on Jan. 19, though only officially lasted for a day, when U.S. TikTok users received a notification upon opening the app notifying them that the ban was to be repealed, even including a ‘thank you’ to incoming President Donald Trump. 

Trump followed through the following day on his inauguration with an executive order delaying the enforcement of the ban. Critics of the president have noted Trump’s history of threatening TikTok with the ban, implying alleged nefarious reasons for switching his position and offering the company clemency.

While news continues to unfold, U.S. users can officially log back on, although the ban is still preventing new users from downloading accounts. Trump has since announced his openness to Elon Musk or Larry Ellison purchasing TikTok, which may give away a political long game for his administration, though only time will tell.