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Journalism of Courage
After months of official extensions to prevent the social media app TikTok from being banned in the United States, President Donald Trump posted on Monday (September 15) that a deal had been reached with Chinese officials.
“The big Trade Meeting in Europe between The United States of America, and China, has gone VERY WELL!”, he wrote, adding, “A deal was also reached on a “certain” company that young people in our Country very much wanted to save. They will be very happy! I will be speaking to President Xi [of China] on Friday…”
Government officials from the US and China met in Madrid, Spain, on Sunday and Monday, in the fourth leg of their trade talks since the US imposed tariffs on China earlier this year. Bilateral delegations previously met in Switzerland (in May), London (in June), and Stockholm (in July), leading to a decline in the rate of tariffs imposed by the countries on each other’s products.
However, several issues also need to be addressed, including the future of the Chinese-origin social media app. What has the app’s journey been in the US, and what has happened under Trump?
The short videos app has its origins in the Chinese company ByteDance, which was founded in 2012 by Chinese entrepreneur Zhang Yimin. It was initially a news aggregator.
Four years later, amid the global success of another Chinese company named Musical.ly, which had users lip-sync to audios and songs in short-duration videos, ByteDance launched the Douyin app for Chinese users. An international version called TikTok was launched in 2016.
In 2017, ByteDance acquired Musical.ly and later merged it with TikTok. Within the next few years, the app gained international popularity that was unheard of for a Chinese-origin social media company at the time. US rapper Lil Nas X, aged just 20 years old in 2019, had his song “Old Town Road” go viral through the platform, becoming among the first songs to gain popularity through TikTok.
The Covid-19 pandemic further boosted the app among audiences who were at home and often glued to their screens, with dance challenges and other trends. One big contributor to its success was the accuracy of its algorithm, or how it was instructed to show users content, accurately predicting their interests based on the topics they engaged with. In September 2021, the app reached a billion active users.
Early on, as it became popular in the US, officials raised concerns about user privacy and data. Several media reports claimed that TikTok censored information critical of the Chinese government, such as the Hong Kong protests of 2019.
According to a CNN report from last year, TikTok was first incorporated in California in April 2015. Its Singaporean CEO, Shou Zi Chou, sought to distance the company from China. He told US lawmakers during a congressional hearing in 2023 that the app was not available in China (only Douyin was) and that it was headquartered in Los Angeles and Singapore.
ByteDance has also said that around 60% of its shareholders are global investment firms, including US-based companies. However, as CNN reported, “The app is owned by TikTok LLC, a limited liability company incorporated in Delaware and based in Culver City, California. The LLC is controlled by TikTok Ltd, which is registered in the Cayman Islands and based in Shanghai. That firm is ultimately owned by ByteDance Ltd, also incorporated in the Cayman Islands and based in Beijing.” Thus, the app continues to be linked with China.
Another concern here is the unique political structure of China, with very little distinction between the Communist Party and the Chinese state, which is the ultimate authority on all matters. ByteDance could, if needed, share app information that the state demanded from it.
In 2022, TikTok said it migrated its user data to US servers managed by the tech firm Oracle, but US officials continued to exercise caution, with many states and federal departments telling their employees not to download the app on their devices.
At the end of his first presidential term (2017 to 2021), Trump was critical of TikTok, claiming it mishandled the Covid-19 pandemic and spread conspiracy theories about the origins of the virus.
He then issued an executive order banning American companies from any “transaction” with ByteDance and its subsidiaries, including TikTok. He later ordered ByteDance to divest from TikTok’s US operations within 90 days. At the time, companies like Microsoft were in the race to acquire the app.
TikTok then sued the Trump administration for the alleged violation of due process in its executive orders. Under his successor, Joe Biden (2021 to 2025), there was further scrutiny of the app from both Democrats and Republicans. In 2024, a Bill to ban TikTok or force its sale to a US company passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, eventually getting Biden’s assent.
After winning the presidential elections in November 2024, Trump asked the Supreme Court to pause the potential TikTok ban from going into effect until they could pursue a “political resolution” to the issue. In January 2025, the top court upheld the ban, leading to a few days of the app going dark in the US that month.
Following his inauguration on January 20 this year, Trump issued an executive order to delay the ban from coming into effect, and eventually gave the app several extensions. The deadline is now September 17.
(With Associated Press inputs)
