Possible TikTok ban

What caused the TikTok ban?

The US government banned the Chinese-owned app because of concerns growing over the owner, ByteDance, sharing personal information with the Chinese government. A new U.S. law ordered either the app to be sold or it would be banned if not sold in time by a deadline set by the law.  The app was not sold in time which resulted in the ban. Overnight, over 170 million users were locked out of the app. (Find more on pandasecurity )

TikTok vs. Court

The Supreme Court was asked to decide if Congress’ TikTok law was constitutional. TikTok argued saying the ban over the app was violating the First Amendment. However, the court stated the ban did in fact not violate First Amendment rights or limit free speech. The Supreme Court also decided that the President can now ban other foreign-owned apps that are seen as a threat. (find more on www.forbes.com/sites and firstamendment.mtsu.edu )

Will the app end up being banned?

TikTok was banned temporarily in the U.S for 12 hours on Jan. 19. On President Trump’s first day in office, he signed an executive order to extend the use of the app for 75 days.  There is some question to whether this executive order was constitutional. Bytedance now has until April 5th to sell the app. If not sold by that date, the app will get banned. (USAtoday)

Who wants to buy the app?

According to www.ccn.com, three main candidates who were considering buying TikTok were Elon Musk, ‘Mr Beast’ and Steven Mnuchin. According to Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives, “We estimate TikTok is worth $100 billion.” However, the app could sell for much less. “Without the algorithm we believe TikTok is worth $30 billion to $40 billion,” he told cbsnews.com.