TikTok in the United States: from meteoric rise to imminent closure

It smells like the end for TikTok in the United States. The social network is under threat of a ban as of Sunday, January 19 under a law passed in April by Congress, even if President-elect Donald Trump wants the fate of the platform not to be fixed right away. following. A look back at the history of TikTok in the United States.

In 2016, Chinese entertainment giant ByteDance launched Douyin, a user-created video sharing platform, in China. Its popularity prompted the group to create a version for foreign audiences, called TikTok.

The following year, ByteDance acquired Musical.ly for $1 billion, and in 2018, merged this music app « lipsyncing » (lip sync to music) with TikTok. The social network is growing rapidly thanks to its short entertaining videos posted by users and content creators, from dancing to cooking, comedy, animals and challenges.

Already very popular – and already in the crosshairs of certain authorities – TikTok becomes essential during the health crisis which leads to numerous confinements in 2020. Its very powerful recommendation algorithm encourages fans to chain together clips, like a pack of candy . The service is thus reaching a wider audience, well beyond adolescents. It becomes one of the most downloaded applications in the world.

Google and Facebook respectively launch YouTube Shorts and Reels, which mimic the format of TikTok. But its links with China give it a political dimension. In July 2020, India banned TikTok in response to tensions with its neighbor.

In August 2020, Donald Trump signed two decrees aimed at banning TikTok in the United States unless ByteDance sold the valuable platform. He accuses it, without evidence, of siphoning the data of American users for the benefit of the Chinese government, following the law which obliges companies in the country to comply with its requests.

The American president’s decision comes against a backdrop of diplomatic and commercial tensions between Washington and Beijing. In difficulty in the polls, the Republican is campaigning in particular on an anti-China message, multiplying references to the “Chinese virus”. Between the legal challenges and the election of Joe Biden in November, the decrees do not take effect.

In September 2021, TikTok announced that it had 1 billion monthly users worldwide. But concerns about the platform are also growing about the risks of addiction, propaganda or espionage.

In 2022, BuzzFeed reported that China-based ByteDance employees accessed non-public information of TikTok users. The company indicates that the data of its American users is now hosted only in the United States, on servers managed by the American company Oracle. This does not reassure Washington. The Pentagon had already banned the app from all military smartphones, and many agencies and organizations, from the White House to universities, are following suit.

In April 2024, despite the strong mobilization of TikTok and many creators, Congress adopted, by a large majority, a law which obliged ByteDance to sell the social network by January 19, 2025, under penalty of ban. Washington thus intends to prevent the risks of espionage and manipulation by Beijing of TikTok users, which claims 170 million in the United States.

The platform has ensured for years that it has never transmitted information to the Chinese government. She filed a complaint against the government, accusing the law of violating the right to freedom of expression. ByteDance, for its part, still officially refuses to sell its jewel. TikTok attempted a last appeal before the Supreme Court, which rejected it on Friday. A few hours later, the company announced that it will close on Sunday in the United States, unless there is government intervention.