The popular social media app, TikTok, may or may not be safe in America and Alabama... again.
Users of the app are no stranger to the future of the platform being up in the air. This follows a “will they, won't they” situation around Pres. Donald Trump deciding whether nor not to indefinitely pull the plug on the short video app.
This time, there are reports that the Chinese government might trash stateside plans for a deal. This comes as DeepSeek has clouded the situation, which leads to the risk of a longer or permanent, according to Forbes.
The news outlet reports that now with the app still unavailable in U.S. app stores, a new warning has just hit users. TikTok may automatically delete on the user’s iPhone unless they change their settings. Watch this TikTok video for more about the process.
While the short video app's owner ByteDance seems to be slow-rolling negotiations for a sale— Trump's allies are racing to broker a deal to sell it to an American bidder, the Washington Post reports.
These recent developments come on the heels of Trump announcing that Microsoft is in talks to purchase the app used by 170 million Americans, including Alabamians.
Trump’s previous executive order that gave a 75-day extension to the popular social media app, TikTok, has brought Americans more time with the beloved app.
“The extension came officially on inauguration day, on Jan. 20. It was one of the first executive orders Pres. Trump signed after being inaugurated for his next term,” said Jessica Maddox, an associate professor of digital media at The University of Alabama.
“It is important to note that the TikTok ban as written went into effect on Jan. 19, one day before President Trump could have officially signed that executive order. So, the timeline here is a bit whiplash inducing, right? The Supreme Court upholds the ban on Friday, it goes offline on Saturday night, it's back online Sunday morning, and then it is delayed. Or rather, the ban hasn't gone away. It's just simply been delayed by 75 days.”
For those 170 million Americans, including those in Alabama, Jan. 19 was easily one of the most dreaded days of the new year. That’s because TikTok, a social media app that allows users to create and share short form content, was supposed to be banned.
However, American TikTok users witnessed the app shut down early on Saturday, Jan. 18 and were greeted with a message when they tried to use the app that night:
“A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S. Unfortunately, that means you can’t use TikTok for now,” the pop-up message on the app read. “We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office. Please stay tuned!”
The app didn’t stay shut down forever though. After just 14 hours, TikTok began working again for users in the United States who still had the app on their phone and yet another message greeted creators and app users alike:
“Thanks for your patience and support. As a result of President Trump’s efforts, TikTok is back in the U.S.! You can continue to create, share and discover all the things you love on TikTok,” the app stated.
Maddox said Americans should not only question these messages, but big tech’s growing relationship with government officials.
“I believe those messages are incredibly significant. Politics often work in the realm of immediacy. People remember the most more recent things,” she said. “So, I would encourage people to exercise some caution in considering those messages. Ask questions about the growing relationship between big tech and the U.S. government.
I would ask questions about Mark Zuckerberg’s encroaching relationship with President. We saw these tech CEOs at the inauguration in very prominent seats ahead of the cabinet. These individuals were seated in the front row. The cabinet was seated behind them. And so, I would encourage people to think about what that means and to be cautious of the relationship between the government and big tech.”
But just how did we get here? Well, the long road to TikTok’s ban in America began in 2020:
The TikTok Ban Timeline
Trump initially brought the idea of banning the app to congress’ attention during his first term in 2020 in retaliation to how China handled the COVID-19 virus.
Maddox said while the president started the idea of the ban, we were likely always going to see this type of legislation eventually.
“It is important to remember he is the one who got this ball rolling. He is the one who brought attention to this issue in the first place and really kind of galvanized political support, particularly among the Republican Party, for banning such an app,” Maddox said. “Now that being said, I do want to caution listeners, I do think this kind of legislation would have eventually emerged anyway, but that's also a reality I can only guess about.”
In March 2024, the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which says that TikTok should sell to a U.S. based company or be banned in the nation, was introduced by Rep. Mike Gallagher.
The bill was passed overwhelmingly by the House of Representatives and the Senate and was officially signed into law by former Pres. Joe Biden in April 2024. Maddox said one reason it passed so overwhelmingly is because the bill was wrapped up in another bill to propose aid to allied countries.
“The bill, the Protect Americans from Foreign Adversaries, act was tucked into an international aid bill. It was kind of a subsection of a much larger bill to provide international relief to Israel and Ukraine, among other allies of the United States. So, when we talk about this bill passing overwhelmingly, it was actually the aid bill that passed overwhelmingly, and the TikTok ban was just kind of tucked in there,” she explained.
Maddox continued by stating that elected officials don’t fully understand how embedded the app had become to Americans in the short 5-year period that it exploded in popularity.
“I have been following congressional attempts to regulate kids on the internet and to regulate social media for a decade, over a decade now and every time that social media CEOs are dragged up to Capitol Hill for hearing senators of both parties embarrass themselves by not knowing anything really about technology or how it works.
Supreme Court justices asked a couple similar questions, such as incorrectly saying TikTok is the only app that syncs your phone's contacts to the app. Any app can do that. So, to me, I think that us politicians of both parties don't understand social media and technology and its role in American life, and that also contributes to considerations and concerns about things like the TikTok ban.”
The Lawsuit Phase
But TikTok was not going down without a fight. In May 2024, the CEO of TikTok, Shou Chew announced that the app would be suing the federal government because they believed the app violated American users’ first Amendment right to free speech.
After months of legal battles, in December, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the government’s ban on TikTok did not violate American users’ right to free speech. TikTok later released a statement which said they would go to the Supreme Court of the United States who has an “established historical record of protecting Americans' right to free speech.”
The Supreme Court hearing, which was faster than usual, left many Americans feeling restless regarding the future of TikTok and in protest, U.S. users flocked to the Chinese owned app Xiaohongshu often called RedNote by U.S. users.
Maddox said Americans moving to an app that is directly owned by China was partially done in protest to the U.S. government banning TikTok without a compelling case being made for banning the app.
“What the flocking of users to RedNote showed me a couple things. One that American users, American social media users, are actually savvier. I think some people realize they are, and they are sick and tired of TikTok being a political football. And I think that if there had been a compelling case made for why TikTok needed to be banned. I actually think sure there would have been people upset, but in general, I think people could have gotten behind it, but there was no compelling case made,” she explained.
Maddox further explained that the U.S. not having proper data security and education for two decades yet singling out TikTok as a national security threat that could do damaging things with American data was another issue.
“I think if the United States had bothered to engage in meaningful data security regulation and education over the past 20 years. Instead of singling out individual apps, we could have had a very different conversation here, but they didn't do that. And to me, the move to RedNote is the United States politicians reaping what they've sown by not prioritizing data security regulation and education. It also shows the power of trends on social media. People were moving to RedNote, so nobody wanted to be left out, so they moved on over there,” she said.
However, things did not play out in court like Chew and others at TikTok expected. After The Supreme Court heard the case on Jan. 10 and upheld the government’s decision to ban the app on Jan. 17.
The following day, TikTok stated it would “go dark” without clarity from Biden on his stance to not enforce a shutdown of the app.
And that brings us up to speed with the state of TikTok in America. However, the future of the app still remains up in the air as there has yet to be an American company to purchase the app.
During this time of TikTok limbo, Maddox encourages American social media users to look into the data apps collect from them, including those apps owned by U.S. companies.
“We know for a fact that back in I believe 2017 Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, actually knowingly sold data to Chinese politicians and corporations. So this concern about TikTok hypothetically doing so is singling out an app when the fact of data security in the United States should be something we take much more seriously than we do,” Maddox explained.
She also said America’s data regulations are behind when it comes to countries we consider to be our peers.
“The United States lags behind its peer countries. As countries in the European Union when it comes to data security, and that we do not have any federal, really, any federal, meaningful data security or regulation. I would encourage people to go into social media, their social media accounts, and look at what data apps are collecting on them, even the American owned one, and push user, push their elected officials more broadly to consider data security and regulation without just focusing on a specific, specific app,” Maddox said.
