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Journalism of Courage
A saga of two executive orders captures, in part, the extremes that US President-elect Donald Trump could traverse on exactly the same subject.
The short-video sharing platform used by over 160 million Americans began restoring its services on Sunday after Trump said he would revive the app’s access in the US when he returns to power Monday. “Frankly, we have no choice. We have to save it,” Trump said at a rally on Sunday, hours before his inauguration. In a message to users hours before the rally, TikTok said: “As a result of President Trump’s efforts, TikTok is back in the US”.
Earlier on Sunday, Trump had announced the decision in a post on his Truth Social account as millions of TikTok users in America awoke to discover they could no longer access the TikTok app or the platform. Google and Apple removed the app from their digital stores to comply with a US federal law that required them to do so if TikTok parent company ByteDance did not sell its American operation to an approved buyer by Sunday.
Triggered by Trump’s 2020 executive order, and after multiple twists and turns, US legislators enacted this federal law that required ByteDance to sever ties with the platform’s American operations by Sunday citing national security concerns posed by the app’s Chinese origins. This was passed with wide bipartisan support in April, and President Joe Biden then went on to sign it. ByteDance sued citing the rights accorded under the US First Amendment. The American Supreme Court upheld the law on Friday.
The TikTok ban was in many ways an unprecedented step. The US has never banned a major social media platform and this move did mark a clear break from the past. Web searches for the word “VPN” surged in the minutes after American users struggled to access TikTok, according to Google Trends quoted by news agency Reuters.
This also comes at a particularly tense moment in US-China relations, given Trump’s public threats of higher tariffs on China. Earlier, on Friday, the Chinese Embassy in Washington accused the US of using unfair state power to suppress TikTok. “China will take all necessary measures to resolutely safeguard its legitimate rights and interests,” a spokesperson said.
In the days running up to his inauguration, Trump has, however, struck a discernibly conciliatory tone on bilateral relations with China and indicated that he wants to have more direct contact with Chinese leaders. Significantly, Beijing is sending its Vice-President, Han Zheng, to Trump’s inauguration on Monday – the first time a senior Chinese leader will witness a US president taking oath. Foreign leaders traditionally do not attend US presidential inaugurations. TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew also plans to attend the inauguration, Reuters said, quoting a source.
After Trump’s August 2020 executive order, a deal structured as a partnership that would have included both Oracle and Walmart taking stakes in Tik Tok was formulated, but it subsequently fell through. This time around, media reports say Beijing has held talks about selling TikTok’s US operations to Trump ally Elon Musk, though the company has denied that. Search engine startup Perplexity AI submitted a bid on Saturday to ByteDance for Perplexity to merge with TikTok US, Reuters said, quoting a source.
Privately held ByteDance is about 60 per cent owned by institutional investors that include General Atlantic and BlackRock, while its founders and employees own 20 per cent each.
