The Banning of TikTok
On January 19th 2025, TikTok was banned in the United States. 170 million TikTokers lost their jobs, source of income, and entertainment. But on January 20th around 1:30 pm TikTok was unbanned and brought back to all users on any device.
TikTok’s official banning comes after the Supreme Court on January 17th upheld a ban that was passed with broad bipartisan support in Congress and signed into law in April by President Joe Biden. The law prevents American companies from hosting or serving content for the Chinese-owned social media platform unless it sells itself to a buyer from the United States.
The biggest upset about TikTok being banned was that creators lost their jobs, their source of income, and entertainment. Small business owners on the app lost their livelihood and ways to express their creativity. There were a lot of mixed emotions leading up to the ban by many different influencers. A beauty influencer, James Charles, posted a video of him discussing how losing TikTok is going to destroy so many creative opportunities for people and he was getting very emotional discussing this topic.
TikTok was banned for about 14 hours on January 19th into the 20th. Newly elected President Donald Trump promised to halt the TikTok ban when he entered office and that’s what he did. TikTok is fully back now and there’s no restrictions on the app. Now there are a few problems with TikTok that creators have experienced. TikTok is not available in the App Store anymore and if the app was deleted off of a device it can’t be redownloaded. But Donald Trump is currently getting that worked out with the Supreme Court.
