When does the US TikTok ban start?

TikTok is set to be banned in the US on January 19 after the Supreme Court rejected a decision A final legal attempt from Its Chinese owner is ByteDance.

I found a law banning the social media platform It did not violate TikTok’s First Amendment rights And its 170 million users, the companies claimed.

But will the decision of the country’s highest judicial authority actually prevent Americans from using it?

The White House says that “given the reality of the timing,” the implementation of the law will actually fall to Trump, who will be sworn in on Monday. – The day after the ban goes into effect.

President-elect Donald Trump has indicated that he would offer TikTok a lifeline.

So what happens next?

Trump said on Saturday that he would “probably” give TikTok a 90-day reprieve from the ban. He told NBC News that an announcement on the matter would likely be made on Monday.

On Friday, before the court issues its ruling, He said he spoke to Chinese President Xi Jinping About TikTok, as well as trade-related issues.

“I expect we will solve many problems together, starting immediately,” he posted on social media.

On Thursday, Trump’s new national security adviser, Mike Waltz, told Fox News that the president-elect was looking for ways to “preserve” TikTok, saying Americans’ access to the platform and their data would be preserved.

“I don’t want to get ahead of our executive orders, but we will create space to put this deal into effect,” Waltz said.

The Biden administration has made clear it will not enforce the law, so the other option is for Trump to follow suit and allow the law to stand but ask the Justice Department to ignore it.

The government will effectively tell Apple and Google that they won’t be penalized for continuing to allow people to download TikTok on their devices, meaning the law will remain in place but will essentially be redundant.

Obviously, companies may not feel comfortable about breaking the law even if they are told it is okay to do so – it would effectively require them to take the boss’s word that they will not face punishment.

If Trump can’t unban TikTok, what will happen?

The most likely way the US would enforce the ban would be to order app stores to make it unavailable for download in that region.

But the Justice Department said the actual process of enforcing the law — and ensuring companies comply — will be “a process that continues over time.”

If people can no longer use a legitimate means of accessing TikTok through digital storefronts, that won’t affect those who already have it on their phones.

But since the app will likely no longer be available to the public, new updates will no longer be delivered to users in the US, which will make the app more glitchy and, ultimately, unusable.

Not to mention, many updates are provided to fix security vulnerabilities in the apps, so if TikTok stops getting updates, it could provide hackers with millions of devices to target.

Naturally, there are ways to get around this ban.

There are already several videos circulating on TikTok telling users how to use a VPN (virtual private network) – a way to make it look like you’re in another area.

The region of app stores can also be changed on most devices, so anyone can theoretically access apps from other countries – although this could cause other issues, not to mention potentially violating the terms of service agreements.

It is also possible to install applications downloaded from the Internet by modifying the device – which may violate copyright law – and comes with its own risks.

However, the government has also anticipated this, so it also proposes to ban “internet hosting services” from giving people access to the app.

So, if the ban ends up taking this kind of form, it’s likely that those who were determined to use TikTok after it went into effect will still be able to do so — but it won’t be the experience they’re used to.

However, there are other methods available to the government in the future – for example, after India banned TikTok in 2020, it ordered internet providers to block access to the app completely.

TikTok’s lawyer told the Supreme Court he believes the app will “go dark” in the United States.

Professor Milton L. said: Mueller of the Georgia Institute of Technology — who filed a legal brief in support of TikTok — said the complexity of the issue means that even experts are unclear about what will happen next.

But what is clear, he said, is the impact on users and the Internet itself.

He added: “This will fully legitimize Internet fragmentation along national or jurisdictional borders.”

So far, ByteDance has been resolute against offering any sale of its award-winning assets in the US.

But could that change now that it’s already been banned — and what will happen when the president who prides himself on the “art of the deal” returns to the White House?

Potential buyers keep lining up – with them Bloomberg News reported Tuesday That the company was looking to sell to billionaire Elon Musk TikTok has since described this As “pure fantasy”.

Trump’s former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and billionaire businessman Frank McCourt are among those who have previously expressed interest in buying it.

McCourt, the former owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team, said he had secured verbal commitments worth $20 billion from a group of investors to make a bid for TikTok.

There’s a more left-wing – and considerably less serious – proposed owner.

The biggest YouTuber in the world MrBeast He claimed he was now in the running to make a deal After billionaires contacted him about this topic.

Although it may seem like a joke, he has a big financial incentive to try to save the app — MrBeast has more than 100 million followers on TikTok.

TikTok says it has 170 million users in the United States, who will spend, on average, 51 minutes per day on the app in 2024.

Blocking TikTok or making it less usable creates a huge opportunity for its big tech rivals, says Jasmine Enberg, an analyst at Insider Intelligence.

“Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts, which is owned by Meta, which is owned by Google, are best suited for displaced users, creators, and advertisers,” she says.

Facebook could also benefit, although Ms. Enberg says, as with all meta platforms: Controversial political changes Announced by President Mark Zuckerberg could reduce its appeal.

Users bring in advertisers – so a ban could be a big financial boost for those platforms.

“The chief marketing officers we spoke to confirmed that they would shift their media dollars to Meta and Google if they could no longer advertise on TikTok — and this is the same behavior we saw in India when they banned TikTok in 2020,” Forrester said. Principal analyst Kelsey Chickering.

Lemon8, also owned by ByteDance, would have been an obvious place for people to go after the ban, but the law stipulates that it also applies to other apps owned or operated by the company. This means that Lemon8 will also likely have difficulty getting access in the US.

Other potential winners include Twitch, which made its name by hosting live streams, a popular feature on TikTok. Twitch is particularly known for gamers, although it continues to grow with other content.

Other Chinese-owned platforms, Like Xiao Hongshu — known as RedNote among its US users — has seen rapid growth in the US and UK.

However, some point out that no existing app can truly replace TikTok, particularly the TikTok Shop feature, which allows users to purchase products directly from videos, and makes a lot of money for US content creators.

Craig Atkinson, CEO of digital marketing agency Code3, said there was no direct competitor that people could easily switch to — and noted that his agency was signing new contracts with clients to create TikTok Shop campaigns in late December.