Whatever Happened to the TikTok Ban?
Heading into 2025, all eyes were on TikTok. That’s because the so-called “TikTok ban” was scheduled to go into effect in the United States in mid-January. Unless ByteDance, the Chinese company behind TikTok, found a U.S. buyer, the social media platform would go permanently dark.
Not surprisingly, TikTok content creators, brand marketers, and online influencers have been raising the alarm bells for months. If TikTok is banned in the United States, it would force them to embrace some other social media platform, and it would potentially jeopardize all the hard work that they had put into building their loyal online fan bases.
Donald Trump to the rescue
For a brief period of time - approximately 12 hours - TikTok did go dark. Silicon Valley companies that had any relation at all to TikTok were concerned about the potential penalties and fines they might incur if they allowed TikTok to continue operating, so they pulled the plug.
But then President Donald Trump got involved. He issued an executive order, giving TIkTok a brief reprieve, and yet more time to find a potential (non-Chinese) owner. And when that 75-day executive order expired, he issued another 75-day executive order.
Which brings us to where we are today. It’s now been approximately 150 days since Trump became president, so that means the TikTok community is once again wondering what’s going to happen next. The growing consensus is that Trump will issue yet another executive order, thereby kicking the can down the road yet one more time. Two months from now, we’ll be having the same discussion.
Can Trump really do this? The short answer is: “Yes.” Essentially, the Trump administration has three options. It can continue to look for ways to extend the deadline for the TikTok ban. It can mount a vigorous legal challenge to the Biden-era legislation that gave rise to the ban. Or it can simply let the latest executive order expire, and let the ban go into effect.
Given the strong penalties involved, it’s likely that SIlicon Valley would go along with any ban. So they would likely boot TikTok from mobile phone app stores, and remove it from search results. Overnight, TikTok would go dark - this time, perhaps for good.
Remember: the government has claimed that TikTok is a social media platform that has been weaponized by the Chinese government. As many members of Congress see it, TikTok is a tool for espionage, and a source of disinformation for the Chinese Communist Party. So they’re likely not too thrilled that Trump continues to issue executive orders to protect TikTok.
Time to make a TikTok contingency plan
If you’re a content creator, a brand marketer, a small business owner, or an online influencer, it’s time to make a contingency plan. Just as some YouTube creators now run “back up channels” in case they run afoul of social media censors, TikTok creators should be thinking about “back up” social media platforms.
At the very least, TikTok creators need to be regularly reminding fans and followers about other places they can be found on social media. And, as best as possible, TikTok creators should be thinking about ways to repurpose some (if not all) of their content for platforms such as Instagram or YouTube.
As with most things today, the future of TikTok really depends on the whims of President Trump himself. Right now, he says that he has “a little sweet spot” in his heart for TikTok, since it helped him win the 2024 presidential election. But what happens if he wakes up one day and sours on TIkTok? That’s why you need to be looking ahead. As they say: hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.