TikTok a few hours before its disappearance in the United States

After years of debate and months of legal battle, TikTok should disappear on Sunday in the United States and deprive 170 million users of the very popular application.

Unanimously by its members, the American Supreme Court refused on Friday to suspend a law banning the platform, unless its Chinese owner, ByteDance, agrees to sell it by January 19.

The nine senior judges considered that even if “TikTok offers an important mode of expression, interaction and belonging to a community”, the concerns of Congress “in matters of national security” are “well founded”.

Donald Trump in a key position for the future of TikTok

The fate of TikTok in the United States now largely depends on future President Donald Trump. The White House has put the ball in the court of the next government, which will take office on Monday.

Donald Trump, who himself tried to ban TikTok at the end of his first term in 2020, has said he is in favor, on several occasions, of the application being preserved in the United States.

Friday, he stressed that the Court’s decision must be “respected”, but said he “needs time” to rule on the fate of the social network, promising a decision “in the fairly near future”.

Last April, Republican and Democratic elected officials adopted a law intended to prevent Chinese authorities from accessing the data of users of the social network in the United States or from attempting to manipulate American opinion.

The American Department of Justice announced on Friday that its application would be spread over time, raising the question of its very short-term effects.

Immediate measures to stop the application

The text theoretically requires internet access and data hosting providers, and application stores, to block downloads and updates of the application from midnight on the night of Saturday to Sunday.

The main ones, contacted by AFP, did not respond.

“TikTok will unfortunately be forced to shut down on January 19,” the company announced on X Friday evening, unless “the Joe Biden government immediately provides guarantees on the non-application of the law to service providers essential”.

Donald Trump brought up TikTok during a phone conversation Friday with Chinese President Xi Jinping. And the boss of the social network, Shou Chew, is one of the guests of honor for his inauguration ceremony on Monday.

A possible reprieve, but uncertainties remain

“I want to thank President Trump for his commitment to working with us to find a solution that allows TikTok to remain available in the United States,” Shou Chew said in a video posted on the platform on Friday.

“We are going to put in place measures to prevent TikTok from turning off the lights” in the United States, assured Thursday on the Fox News channel Mike Waltz, appointed National Security Advisor by Donald Trump.

The law provides for a 90-day deadline if the White House can show that it is progressing towards a viable agreement, but ByteDance and Beijing have so far categorically refused any sale, even if several American investors have positioned themselves.

Businessman Frank McCourt is ready to put $20 billion on the table with other partners, for the application’s American activities, without his powerful algorithm.

In this uncertain context, advertisers on TikTok are divided. “Some are betting on an extinction (of the platform), while others are more optimistic and think that it will continue after Sunday,” commented Courtney Spritzer, boss of the digital marketing agency Socialfly.

The impact on creators and the rise of alternatives

On the app, many American content creators posted videos combining their favorite moments from recent years with farewell messages calling for them to follow them on other platforms, including Chinese alternatives, openly mocking concerns of their elected officials.

The three most downloaded applications on the Apple store this week were three video platforms: the Chinese Xiaohongshu (“Little Red Book”), Lemon8, another ByteDance subsidiary, and the American Clapper. TikTok itself was in the top 10.

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