The future of TikTok in the US continues to hang in the balance - and with it, TikTok’s role as an important marketing and fan engagement platform for the American music industry.
The US Supreme Court has not yet given its ruling on whether the law forcing a sale or ban of TikTok is constitutional or not. In a hearing last week judges seemed to be erring towards saying that it is constitutional, which would mean that - by 19 Jan - TikTok must either sell off its business in the US, or face a ban in the country.
As a result TikTok’s ability to continue operating in the US may now rely pretty much entirely on the famously volatile opinions of Donald Trump - or a complete change of stance by current owner ByteDance regarding a sale.
The incoming President has formally confirmed that he will try to save TikTok, a commitment he previously made during last year’s presidential election. That confirmation came in the shape of his own filing with the Supreme Court, asking judges to postpone the date when the TikTok ban will take effect, which is currently 19 Jan, the day before Trump is inaugurated as President.
Trump’s filing says that he opposes banning TikTok “at this juncture”, and instead wants to “resolve the issues at hand through political means once he takes office”. Because, of course, “President Trump alone possesses the consummate dealmaking expertise, the electoral mandate, and the political will to negotiate a resolution to save the platform while addressing the national security concerns expressed by the government”. Or at least that’s what the court filing made by consummate dealmaker Trump says.
And that’s not the only reason Trump is the man to solve the TikTok problem, the court papers were keen to stress. Trump has unique expertise in this domain as a social media superstar. “President Trump is one of the most powerful, prolific and influential users of social media in history”, claims the filing, before bragging about Trump’s 14.7 million followers on TikTok, and the fact he is founder of the “resoundingly successful social-media platform Truth Social”.
Truth Social was set up after Trump was banned from various social media platforms, including Twitter - a ban that was later undone by Elon Musk after he bought the social network. In recent months there has been speculation that Trump and Musk may merge their two social networks, with academic Scott Galloway saying that a merger might present a way for Musk to “funnel billions of dollars” to Trump, “legally, as far as I can tell”
Trump’s filing requesting a postponement of the TikTok ban was made late last month, prompting much debate over what kind of political resolution Trump thinks he can negotiate, and to what extent he is really committed to becoming TikTok’s saviour.
The sell-or-be-banned law passed by Congress last year addresses concerns that the Chinese government has access to TikTok user-data via China-based Bytedance. And the new President’s government is set to have a number of key players in it who see combatting the perceived threat of China as a top priority.
However, TikTok and Bytedance argue that the sell-or-be-banned law violates free speech protections in the First Amendment of the US constitution and Trump likes to present himself as a champion of free speech. Opposing a ban on TikTok would play into that narrative.
That said, it was thought that a key motivating factor for Trump in opposing the TikTok ban - despite trying to ban the app himself during his first presidency - was the fact that taking TikTok out of the US market could be a massive boost for Instagram and Facebook owner Meta.
And Trump really hates Meta and its CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Or at least he did, until Zuckerberg started sucking up to the new President last week in a major way, in part by axing some of the content moderation practices that Trump dislikes.
With Zuckerberg, and the other bosses of big tech in the US, all seemingly following the lead of X chief Musk in becoming high profile Trump fans, could the new President reverse his support for saving TikTok? Only time will tell.
Exactly what will happen on 19 Jan remains uncertain, assuming the Supreme Court declines to intervene. Judges could still block or pause the ban. During last week's hearing, they asked tough questions of representatives from both TikTok and the US government. However, commentators felt they were more supportive of the government’s position in favour of the ban.
Certainly, TikTok’s First Amendment arguments were heavily scrutinised, and judges seemed to share the concerns of Congress regarding what level of access the Chinese government may have to TikTok user data.
According to CNN, Judge John Roberts noted that, when passing the sell-or-be-banned law, Congress wasn’t targeting the free expression of TikTok’s users. Congress was “fine with the expression”, he said, “they’re not fine with a foreign adversary, as they’ve determined it is, gathering all this information about the 170 million [Americans] who use TikTok”.
If the ban does go into effect on 19 Jan, Apple and Google will need to remove TikTok from their respective app stores. Last month, members of the Congress select committee on the Chinese Communist Party sent letters to the CEOs of both tech companies insisting they “must take the necessary steps” to implement the ban “by 19 Jan 2025”.
Trump officially takes power at midday the following day. It remains to be seen if he seeks to immediately pause the ban and, if so, how he would go about doing so.
The sell-or-be-banned law does allow the President to extend the deadline by 90 days, though it’s not clear if that can be done once the ban is already in effect.
Plus, an extension of the deadline is only meant to be possible if a route to ByteDance selling TikTok has been clearly identified and more time is needed to complete the deal. TikTok’s lawyers and PR people remain adamant that no divestment will happen and, if the ban does go into effect, that’s it, TikTok is over in the USA.
That said, US Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, who was charged with the task of defending the ban in the Supreme Court last week, argued that once the ban actually hits, ByteDance might change its position.
According to NBC, she said, “I think Congress expects we might see something like a game of chicken, ByteDance saying we can’t do it, China will never let us do it. But when push comes to shove and these restrictions take effect, I think it will fundamentally change the landscape with respect to what ByteDance will consider, and it might be just the jolt that Congress expected the company would need to actually move forward with the divestiture process”.