Will TikTok be banned on June 19?

The National

3 hours ago

For a third time in less than a year, a deadline is approaching that might cause TikTok to cease working in the US.
The US Congress passed a law with bipartisan support last year that ordered ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, to divest from the platform over concerns that American user data was being accessed by Beijing, or face a ban. Legislators set an original deadline of January 19.
President Donald Trump has pushed back the deadline twice, and he said in May that he might give the China-owned video-sharing social platform another extension, but it's not clear if that will happen.
TikTok's troubles are not new, but because the controversy surrounding the social platform has been around for so long, it's easy to forget how it ended up in this predicament.
For several years, as TikTok's popularity and influence grew, so did the concerns about its policies, which many technology analysts have found could leave user data vulnerable to being compromised by the Chinese government.
Though ByteDance and TikTok repeatedly denied accusations that data could be vulnerable, US legislators were sceptical, leading to the passage of the law ordering the app's distancing from Beijing.
After the US Supreme Court dismissed a legal challenge from ByteDance that claimed the law was unconstitutional, TikTok seemed to be at death's door.
On January 18, with ByteDance refusing to sell off TikTok, the company opted to let the platform go dark in the US for almost an entire day before newly sworn-in Mr Trump decided to give it an extension to try and work out a deal.
\Although brief, the blackout proved to be a major incident. Testimony in Meta's antitrust trial showed that TikTok's blackout caused a surge of internet traffic to Instagram.
On April 5, when time had almost run out on his initial extension, Mr Trump again decided to give ByteDance more time.
Entrepreneurs, corporations and tech tycoons have expressed interest in buying TikTok from ByteDance, but the company has refused to divest.
TikTok has also shown no sign of diminishing its presence in the US. The company's careers site lists more than 40 open positions in the public policy, privacy compliance and federal government affairs departments.
Chief executive Shou Zi Chew attended Mr Trump's inauguration and the platform has encouraged users to lobby the President directly. TikTok has also engaged in an intense campaign in the US capital.
The company's survival despite mounting odds is probably frustrating to other US-based technology companies, especially with Google and Meta currently involved in lengthy and costly antitrust battles that could mean the end of their technology dominance.
"It's a different issue," said Shweta Singh, a professor of information systems and management at the University of Warwick. "TikTok's debate centres on national security and foreign influence, not market monopoly."
Ms Singh also said that Mr Trump's affinity for rolling with the changing political tides instead of emphasising ideological purity gives TikTok reason for continued optimism.
"This time President Trump is balancing national security concerns with the reality that TikTok is hugely popular with his voter base," she said, noting that although Mr Trump first floated the idea of banning TikTok during his first term, he changed while trying to win back the White House in 2024.
'For all those who want to save TikTok in America, vote Trump,' he said in a post on his Truth Social platform while on the campaign trail.
Ms Singh added that throughout Mr Trump's campaign, he was able to reach millions more potential voters through TikTok.
"Its algorithm is hyper-addictive, drives unpredictable viral trends, and is accused of shaping public opinion in opaque ways," she said.
With the possibility of another extension and as controversies surrounding user data privacy get further away in the rear view mirror, the likelihood that TikTok survives is increasing.
According to Pew Research data released in March, support for the TikTok ban now hovers about 34 per cent, down significantly from 50 per cent when the poll was first taken in 2023.
Although it seems to be slowly but surely winning in the court of public opinion, TikTok's repeat brushes with a blackout are less than ideal for a social media platform that hosts high-earning influencers and businesses.
In a letter to Mr Trump in March, Democratic senators Ed Markey, Chris Van Hollen and Cory Booker pushed him to avoid short-term extensions in favour of a plan that would endorse legislation that would provide users and TikTok with a clear path forward.
"Without any further action from Congress, the 170 million Americans that rely on TikTok will continue to face uncertainty about TikTok's future," they wrote.
"Creators will continue to fear that the platform could disappear at any moment, and this situation is unfair and unworkable."
Yet for ByteDance, another short-term extension of the deadline beats the idea of no extension at all, which could mean another blackout of indeterminate length.
For now, however, the company is waiting for Mr Trump's decision. TikTok did not respond to The National's requests for comment on this story.