It may not be a complete reversal of the TikTok ban, but users of the social media platform in the US have been granted an extra 75 days of use while the incoming president considers its future in the country.
On his first day back in the White House, Donald Trump passed an executive order to temporarily halt the ban to allow him to “negotiate a resolution to avoid an abrupt shutdown of the TikTok platform”.
That gives the US government until Saturday 5th April to explore ways with TikTok owner Bytedance and Chinese officials in which the service can be saved in the US.
“TikTok is Back”
Trump promised during is reelection campaign that voting for him would mean a stop to the TikTok ban.
And while the long awaited TikTok ban came into effect on Sunday, its estimated 170 million US users didn’t have to wait for long before normal service was restored – the blackout lasted roughly 12 hours, with a notification from the platform telling its users that: “As a result of President Trump’s efforts, TikTok is back in the U.S.!”
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The reprieve was then made formal on Monday in an executive order formally titled ‘The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act’.
National Security Considerations
In the text of the order, Trump took a swipe at outgoing president Joe Biden, saying: “The unfortunate timing of [the ban] — one day before I took office as the 47th President of the United States — interferes with my ability to assess the national security and foreign policy implications of the Act’s prohibitions before they take effect.”
Trump stopped short from reversing the ban altogether and the clock has begun ticking again on the app’s future, giving the government until early April to consider the “national security concerns” posed by TikTok and to “review sensitive intelligence related to those concerns and evaluate the sufficiency of mitigation measures TikTok has taken to date”.
“I am instructing the Attorney General not to take any action to enforce the Act for a period of 75 days from today to allow my Administration an opportunity to determine the appropriate course forward in an orderly way that protects national security while avoiding an abrupt shutdown of a communications platform used by millions of Americans.” – Donald Trump’s executive order
However, the 75 days is likely to be seen more as a negotiating window, with the @TeamTrump handle on the president’s own Truth Social platform saying: “President Trump signs an Executive Order to keep TikTok alive so that a deal can be reached”
CEOs Out in Force for the President
In addition to the deadline extension itself, the executive order also instructs the Department of Justice that no action is to be taken against any parties that had not complied with the ban during its brief enactment.
That means any service providers who may have continued to allow TikTok’s use on Sunday – inadvertently or otherwise – will avoid punishment.
This and a raft of other executive orders were passed shortly after Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday 20th January, with big tech CEOs in attendance such as Elon Musk (X, SpaceX, Tesla), Mark Zuckerberg (Meta), Tim Cook (Apple), Sundar Pichai (Google) and Sam Altman (OpenAI) as well as TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chou.
