President-elect Donald Trump and his team are reportedly working to rescue the video-sharing app TikTok, which is set to go dark after Congress passed legislation banning the platform.
The Supreme Court recently took up TikTok’s case and heard arguments for and against upholding the ban, which requires the parent company ByteDance, based in China, to either shut down the app in American markets or sell it.
The company stated that it will “go dark” on Sunday, January 19, when the law is supposed to take effect.
However, it appears the incoming Trump administration plans to try a questionable gambit: Using an executive order to halt enforcement of the law until ByteDance can sell TikTok, according to a Washington Post report.
President-elect Donald Trump is considering an executive order once in office that would suspend enforcement of the TikTok ban-or-sale law for 60 to 90 days, buying the administration time to negotiate a sale or alternative solution — a legally questionable effort to win a brief reprieve for the Chinese-owned app now scheduled to be banned on Sunday nationwide.
Trump has been mulling ways to save the day for the wildly popular video app, talking through unconventional dealmaking and legal maneuvers such as an executive order that would unravel the law passed by Congress last year with bipartisan support, according to two people familiar with the deliberations, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private talks.
An individual close to Team Trump told The Post that the president-elect wishes to be seen as “making a deal” that would save the app.
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However, some have expressed doubts that this strategy could work.
Executive orders “are not magical documents. They’re just press releases with nicer stationery,” said Alan Rozenshtein, a former national security adviser to the Justice Department now at the University of Minnesota. “TikTok will still be banned, and it will still be illegal for Apple and Google to do business with them. But it will make the president’s intention not to enforce the law that much more official.”
Persuading Congress to repeal the measure might be next to impossible for Trump because it was passed with bipartisan support. But he could simply order his incoming attorney general Pam Bondi not to enforce the measure. Of course, TikTok would still be illegal and it is unclear whether Google or Apple’s app stores would still comply with the law even if Trump indicates he will not enforce it.
But some in Trump’s orbit have floated options that would involve carving off pieces of the company for sale to satisfy the law, give American companies a slice of the business and let him take credit for sealing the deal. The law says the app will not be banned if its foreign owner executes a “qualified divestiture,” a type of transaction that gives the president broad leeway to define.
The law does not prohibit Americans from using the app; it only stops tech companies from offering TikTok on their platforms. This means American users would no longer be able to get updates, eventually rendering the app useless. Of course, tech-savvy Americans could possibly find a way to obtain the updates and continue using the app.
In an ironic turn of events, the impending banning of TikTok has prompted many Americans to migrate to another app owned by a Chinese company: RedNote. This app, also known as Xiaohongshu, has become the most downloaded app on Apple’s store since Tuesday, CBS News reported.
Xiaohongshu has been the most downloaded free app on Apple's app store in the U.S. since Tuesday. Analysis by Sensor Tower, a market intelligence firm, showed the platform's downloads in the U.S. had increased 200% year-on-year and seen a 194% uptick since last week.
QR Code Generator, a firm that provides statistics on trends online, said there had been a 4,900% increase in searches on Google for Xiaohongshu in the U.S. on Monday alone.
The name “Xiaohonghsu” means “little red book,” a reference to Mao Zedong’s book of quotations.
Meanwhile, ByteDance is still preparing to shut down the app as the Supreme Court is expected to uphold the ban.
Proponents of the ban argue that it will protect national security. There are fears that ByteDance could be compelled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to obtain and provide data on American users that could be used for blackmail and other nefarious purposes. Some suggested that China uses TikTok to spread anti-American and pro-China messages on the platform.
Yet, this story reveals that such bans often do not work. Simply banning TikTok will not prevent Americans from using other apps that the federal government finds objectionable. Indeed, RedNote is far more censored and moderated than TikTok and could also pose a similar threat. There are indications that Congress might take the same action against RedNote.
In the end, banning TikTok, especially for non-government employees, will not likely accomplish the intended outcomes. Moreover, it hampers free speech – especially for content creators who built thriving platforms on the app. While it is unlikely that Trump could convince Congress to repeal the ban, it seems the most likely outcome is that ByteDance will eventually sell the app, possibly with Trump’s help. But it is not clear whether the app will be available for American users while such a deal is being hammered out.
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