I get it: You’ve only just worked out a TikTok ad campaign, or you’ve come up with a viable TikTok strategy for your brand, or you’re one of the three percent of adults who can TikTok as well as a fourteen-year-old, and now you’re hearing it’s about to get banned by the government.
The bad news is, yeah, it totally is, possibly. The good news is, it isn’t a done deal yet. Here’s what you need to know (or at least some of what you need to know) before you start to panic.
What the eff?
On August 6, President Trump signed an executive order that will(/would), in essence, ban TikTok in the U.S. or force its sale to a U.S. company by ByteDance, the Chinese tech company currently in possession of it. The order established a 45-day deadline (so that’s September 20) after which “any transaction” between a U.S. entity and ByteDance is forbidden. (The order doesn’t actually specify what a “transaction” is and basically leaves it to the interpretation of the Secretary of Commerce, Wilbur Ross.) The “transaction” question notwithstanding, a likely effect would be that Apple and Google would have to remove TikTok from their app stores and U.S. advertisers would have to back out.
However, that’s not the end of it. On Friday, Trump signed another executive order concerning ByteDance. This one raises questions about the company’s 2017 acquisition of the app Musical.ly, which it would ultimately merge with TikTok. The order demands that ByteDance divest from TikTok entirely (like it was already working on doing) and give up any rights to user data from TikTok or Musical.ly. And it places all kinds of restrictions and requirements on how, and to whom, and under what circumstances, none of which I will try to simplify here because I’m sure I’d get them wrong. The deadline for this one is 90 days, which is, of course, longer than 45 days and takes them all the way to November 12.
TikTok has been downloaded 1.5 billion times, has 800 million users, and has given the world the concept of “TikTok famous.” Naturally, there’s a lot of pressure from the consumer side to keep the app up and running.
Okay, why the eff?
Outside of the fact that TikTok has been the source of countless humorous shellackings of our commander in chief (and the in/famous trolling of his Tulsa rally by TikTok teens and K-pop stans), there are some reasonable security concerns. ByteDance is, as noted above, a Chinese company, and the Chinese government is… we’ll go with notoriously picky about data security. A 2017 national security law in China would, theoretically, require ByteDance to hand over user data on demand if deemed necessary by the government. And that’s just one of a patchwork of Chinese laws that could affect TikTok — the Chinese government is also notorious for its censorship efforts and human-rights abuses surrounding data and communication.
For its part, ByteDance says U.S. user data from TikTok lives on servers in the U.S. under tight security, that they don’t have any servers on Chinese soil, and that they have not shared and would not share (and no evidence exists that they have shared) user data with the Chinese government. And TikTok has been specifically distancing itself from China of late, pulling out of the Chinese market entirely in response to a significant new national security law in Hong Kong and general objections to Chinese censorship. (Fun fact: This isn’t actually without precedent. Last year, Chinese tech company Beijing Kunlun sold its 98-percent stake in Grindr to U.S. investors after similar security concerns were raised.)
We also have to keep in mind throughout this whole issue that Trump has had anything and everything Chinese firmly in his crosshairs for the entirety of his presidency. The Trump administration has, in the past, noted similar concerns with Chinese tech companies Huawei and ZTE. And he issued a similar executive order targeting the messaging platform WeChat (owned by Chinese tech company Tencent) when he signed the original TikTok ban. So the TikTok ban is one part of a larger beef. The facts surrounding the matter, and the degree to which the threat is legitimate and serious, is a question for the experts. The fact that Trump has yet to sign an executive order banning cashew chicken is a mystery for the ages.
Is this actually legal?
I’m far from a lawyer and won’t even try to interpret law. But a few actual lawyers have contributed opinions.
“The big legal questions behind Trump’s TikTok and WeChat bans,” Adi Robertson (a non-lawyer, but with quotes from lawyers), The Verge
“TikTok and the Law: A Primer (In Case You Need to Explain Things to Your Teenager),” Robert Chesney, Lawfare
“Trump Signs Executive Order Against TikTok Use — Here’s What It Means,” Elura Nanos, Law & Crime
“Can the President Ban TIkTok?” LegalEagle (if you need it broken down to just-north-of-Schoolhouse-Rock levels)
TikTok is very insistent that the original order isn’t legal and have has said they plan to sue the Trump administration. They says the administration didn’t follow due process and let TikTok respond to the allegations, which they says are unfounded. The administration hasn’t commented on the suit. TikTok’s U.S. employees have also said they’re going to sue the administration on the grounds that the ban would prevent TikTok from paying them. There’s no telling at the moment how the more recent executive order would influence the suits, but interpretations are sure to come out in the next few days.
What’s next?
Dunno. Right now, Microsoft is at the head of a small pack of companies and investors looking to buy TikTok’s operations in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand (or even, reports are saying, the whole damn thing). Negotiations there are expected to wrap up by September 15, beating the original executive order’s deadline. (Twitter has also expressed interest but likely can’t afford to buy TikTok on its own.) One complication is that ByteDance offers a similar app, called Douyin, to Chinese customers (because of the whole censorship thing). Since the two apps share a common codebase, it’ll likely take some finagling to figure out how to untangle them.
So that’s the situation as it currently stands. We’re still weeks out from knowing how the potential Microsoft deal will pan out, if Trump will come up with yet another executive order just for funsies, or if he’ll finally get around to banning cashew chicken. Time will tell. But it might be a good idea to load up on some cashew chicken now, just in case.