Apple and Google have been warned that it will soon be unlawful to “provide services to distribute, maintain or update” TikTok in their US app stores, in a letter sent by two members of US Congress.
Distribution of the TikTok app will be banned within the USA on 19 Jan 2025, pending any intervention by the US Supreme Court or the White House, or current owner ByteDance somehow engineering a very sudden sale.
In their letter to Apple chief Tim Cook and Google boss Sundar Pichai, Congress members John Moolenaar and Raja Krishnamoorthi stressed that the ban would affect any marketplace “through which users within the land or maritime borders of the United States may access, maintain or update such application”, unless an intervention or sale occurs before the 19 Jan deadline.
Moolenaar and Krishnamoorthi sent their letter after a Washington DC court rejected a bid by TikTok to block the law passed by Congress earlier this year, which gave China-based ByteDance 270 days to sell the app or face a country-wide ban.
TikTok argues that the law is unconstitutional on free speech grounds, but judges at the DC Court Of Appeal did not agree. On Friday, the same court rejected TikTok’s request to postpone the 19 Jan deadline pending its Supreme Court appeal.
The Congress members also wrote to TikTok CEO Shou Chew last week, arguing that law-makers had given ByteDance “ample time” to sell TikTok after passing the sell-or-be-banned law, which seeks to allay concerns that the Chinese government has access to TikTok user-data via ByteDance.
Moolenaar and Krishnamoorthi, both members of a House Select Committee focused on “the threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party”, emphasised the urgency of the situation.
The 19 Jan ban can be avoided if TikTok is “divested” to a company with no connections to China or any other “adversary nation”, they reminded Chew. ”We urge TikTok to immediately execute a qualified divestiture”, the letter concluded.
ByteDance has been adamant throughout that a sale of TikTok is not an option. However, the company continues its legal efforts to delay and ultimately block the ban. TikTok’s lawyers are now expected to petition the Supreme Court, and will probably ask judges there to postpone the 19 Jan deadline while they review the case.
Meanwhile, under the sell-or-be-banned law, the US President can provide another 90 days for ByteDance to organise a sale.
While it seems unlikely that current President Joe Biden would do that - unless ByteDance suddenly showed a serious intent to sell TikTok - incoming President Donald Trump, who previously vowed to “save TikTok”, might look to pause things when he takes office the day after the 19 Jan deadline.
If Apple and Google do remove TikTok from their app stores in the US on 19 Jan, people who already have the app installed will be able to continue to use it. However, they won’t be able to install future updates, which will likely render the app unusable for US users over time.