World
India
In a turn of events on Sunday, TikTok announced it would restore service to U.S. users after having suspended it just the evening before. The move comes after President-elect Donald Trump provided the necessary assurances to the company’s service providers, ensuring that they would face no penalties for continuing to offer the platform to over 170 million American users and 7 million small businesses.
The situation revolves around a law that, if enforced, would ban TikTok in the United States unless its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, sells the app to a non-Chinese owner. President Joe Biden signed the law earlier this year, but the responsibility for enforcing the ban now falls to Trump. Just hours before TikTok’s announcement, Trump posted on Truth Social, advocating for the app’s continued availability. He said he would issue an executive order that would extend the timeline for the TikTok ban, allowing for negotiations to protect national security and avoid penalties for companies that kept TikTok running in the interim.
TikTok, in its statement, expressed gratitude to President Trump for his “clarity and assurance,” adding that the company would work with his administration on a long-term solution to keep the platform available in the U.S. While TikTok’s app remained unavailable for download from Apple and Google’s stores, access to the platform’s content was still possible via web browsers.
Despite the temporary resolution, TikTok’s future in the U.S. remains uncertain. The law requires ByteDance to sell TikTok to a non-Chinese company, but ByteDance has shown no interest in complying with that stipulation. Trump has floated the idea of a joint venture, with the U.S. owning 50%, but a provision in the law caps foreign adversary ownership at 20%, which could pose another obstacle for such a deal.
As negotiations continue, TikTok faces a precarious future in the U.S., with a potential executive order from Trump providing only temporary relief. The battle over ownership, national security concerns, and foreign influence will likely continue to dominate the headlines in the months to come. For now, the platform’s users can breathe a sigh of relief as TikTok restores service, but the cloud of uncertainty still looms.
ALSO READ: Meet The First Three Hostages Released By Hamas: A Dancer, Nurse, And Tottenham Supporter
