what the fuck “a first on this scale: the total banning of a social network in the United States”, observe Time. “Late Saturday evening, ByteDance, parent company of TikTok, stopped making its platform accessible to 170 million American users. At the same time, the application was no longer downloadable via the Google and Apple application stores.”
Dismissed this week by the Supreme Court, which shared the “well-founded concerns” of Congress “in matters of national security”, the platform of the Chinese group had in fact decided to lower the curtain.
But on Sunday at midday, to everyone’s surprise, “TikTok already announced that it was starting to restore access to its application”, tempers Swiss daily life. So what happened?
“The restoration of service came after Trump – who has indicated for weeks that he wants to help the app – said on Sunday that he would issue an executive order on Monday to restore service to the United States and that he wanted the country takes a stake in the application”, explain The Wall Street Journal.
We must “save” TikTok
This same Donald Trump who “had pushed for a ban under his previous presidency” and who, “after finding a large audience on the app during his 2024 presidential campaign, attempted to intervene in favor of TikTok at the last minute,” ironizes The Guardian.
Result, “About twelve hours after shutting down in the United States, TikTok was back for many users, as if it had never left,” squeaks CNN. The platform even had a message from “Welcome”, taking great care to return to Caesar what belongs to him: “Thank you for your patience and support. Thanks to President Trump’s efforts, TikTok is back in the United States!”
After his promise of a suspensive decree, Donald Trump put on his white knight’s clothes in front of his supporters during his last meeting as president-elect in Washington, on the eve of his inauguration.
“Starting today, TikTok is back,” he said, quoted by Forbes. “We have no choice, we must save him”, he added, “while suggesting that the United States would own 50% of the company, in what he called a ‘joint venture’ Who ‘would make a lot of money’”, notes the economic title.
For its part, ByteDance assured that it wanted “working with President Trump on a long-term solution to keep TikTok in the United States.”
-Legal and policy issues
The honeymoon will continue on Monday, the boss of TikTok having announced several days ago that he planned to attend Donald Trump’s inauguration ceremony, like other tech billionaires, such as Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg or Jeff Bezos.
More “TikTok’s future remains clouded by legal and political questions”, supports NPR. “Apple and Google, which operate the all-powerful app stores for mobile devices, still disagree on letting TikTok return.”
However, without the support of these two companies, “TikTok cannot be downloaded by new users; the application cannot receive vital software updates to fix bugs and other issues; and in-app purchases are at a standstill, with users unable to purchase ‘tokens’ during live streams, or paid subscriptions,” explains American public radio.
TikTok may “never be the same again”
The idea of Donald Trump can be attractive “on the surface”, more “it is unclear whether it would meet the mandate of the law passed by Congress and signed by President Biden banning the app unless the company and algorithm are under U.S. control,” adds The New York Times.
“It is also not clear that this would solve the national security problem inherent in the fact that TikTok’s algorithms – which monitor users’ selections and choose the next content they are shown – are developed in China,” continues the New York title.
“Selling TikTok is very difficult”, further explains The World. “The company cannot give up its algorithm, because it would lose its main competitive advantage. Perhaps, however, it could sell a basic version. It would then be a different TikTok, perhaps less attractive than the current one.”
Pour The Atlantic, after all these adventures, and even if he manages to “come back for good”, TikTok “may never be the same again”.
“Social media is a tricky thing, judges the magazine. Too long an absence means users can lose their focus, and too much focus on culture can completely destroy their magic.”
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