TikTok will have made the decision to close on its own initiative, the Biden administration said, but Trump can still save the social network. “It’s only a matter of time before a progressive ban comes into effect.”
TikTok stopped working on Saturday in the USA, after the Supreme Court decided to maintain a law approved by Congress that forces the application to separate itself from the parent company, the Chinese company ByteDanceor facing closure.
The short video sharing platform, with 170 million users in the United States, sent many of them a warning with the following message: “Sorry, TikTok is currently unavailable”. Furthermore, he attributed the suspension of operations to legislation promoted by Congress.
However, according to the administration of outgoing President Joe Biden, the TikTok made the decision on its own initiative.
Following the Supreme Court’s decision, the White House announced that the current Executive would not enforce the law, leaving its application to the President-elect, Donald Trump, who takes office this Monday.
TikTok has been fighting this law for months, through the US Congress in March, in the name of national security. The United States Supreme Court refused to suspend it, sealing the social network’s fate in the country, unless there is a last-minute intervention.
The new United States government “will put measures in place to prevent TikTok from becoming unavailable” in the country, said, on Friday, the national security advisor chosen by the president-elect of the United States, Donald Trump, in an interview.
“It is likely” that he will give TikTok another 90 days, Trump said.
Trump recently asked for more time to consider its approval. Joe Biden’s administration stated that it will leave the decision on whether to approve the law banning TikTok to Donald Trump’s team.
Trump changed his position on the application, having during his first termbetween 2017 and 2021, due to concerns about national security.
This month, Bloomberg reported that Chinese authorities are considering the possibility of Trump’s ally, Elon Musk TikTok’s North American operations if the platform is banned. TikTok has already denied this scenario.
And here? It’s “a matter of time”
Analysts suggest it is “only a matter of time” before the US ban on TikTok extends to allied countries — and beyond — if the Trump administration decides to keep it offline.
“There are big parallels between TikTok and what happened with China’s Huawei and Kaspersky of Russia, which indicates that it is only a matter of time before a progressive ban comes into force”, says Emily Taylor, editor of Cyber Policy Journal, cited by .
In both cases, these companies were accused by the United States of posing a threat to national security, but cybersecurity authorities never revealed any evidence. The same happened with TikTok.
During Trump’s term, Kaspersky’s flagship antivirus software was banned from US civilian and military computers after allegations surfaced in 2017 that it had been used by the Kremlin in a hacking incident that was never proven.
The strength of the Five Eyes Alliance
The BBC notes that mass bans typically begin with countries in the Five Eyes Alliance, which has an information-sharing agreement between five English-speaking democracies: the USA, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
To date, all members have banned TikTok on government devices and some have issued public warnings. Canada ordered the end of TikTok operations in the country, citing national security concerns.
A influence of these five has already been noted: Restrictions have already spread, and the application has been banned on devices belonging to public servants, civil servants or military personnel in countries such as Austria, Belgium, Estonia, France, the Netherlands, Norway and Taiwan.
“What we don’t know yet is whether TikTok will be the exception, given that Trump has said he opposes the ban, so will he order allies to replicate the ban? We still don’t know“, says Ciaran Martin, former director of the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre.
