From backing a ban to being hailed as a saviour: Inside Trump’s TikTok shift

NEW YORK: During his first term as US president, Donald Trump led the effort to ban TikTok, the hugely popular video-sharing site he said posed a threat to US national security. But on the eve of his return to the White House, the president-elect is being hailed as the app’s saviour.

After going dark for users this weekend, Trump said on his social media site that he would issue an executive order after he’s sworn in for a second term on Monday (Jan 20), delaying a TikTok ban “so that we can make a deal to protect our national security”.

Hours later, the app returned, to the relief of its legions of dedicated users.

“Thanks for your patience and support. As a result of President Trump’s efforts, TikTok is back in the US!” read the announcement.

Trump’s legal authority to unilaterally decide not to enforce the law, which passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in April and was upheld by the Supreme Court on Friday, is unclear. But the rapid developments over the weekend served as a reminder of how dramatically debates over technology, social media and national security have changed since Trump was last in the White House.

Trump can now take credit for reviving an app with 170 million users that is especially popular with younger Americans, many of whom spend hours a day on the platform to get news, make money and find entertainment.

“This is one of those things where the domestic politics has become so upside down and crazy that it turns out there’s only upside for Trump now,” said Bill Bishop, a China expert who has been closely following the back-and-forth.

If the bans ends up being enforced, he said, Trump will say it was on outgoing President Joe Biden’s watch.

“And if it does come back then Trump is a savior. And he will be rewarded both by users” as well as the company, which he said is now “beholden to Trump” and will have an incentive to make sure content on the platform is favourable to him.

Here’s how TikTok, and Trump, came to this juncture:

March 2012: ByteDance is founded in China by entrepreneur Zhang Yimin. Its first hit product is Toutiao, a personalised news aggregator for Chinese users.

July 2014: Startup Musical.ly, later known as an eponymous app used to post short lipsyncing music videos, is founded in China by entrepreneur Alex Zhu.

July 2015: Musical.ly hits the top spot in the Apple App Store, following a design change that made the company’s logo visible when users shared their videos.

2016: ByteDance launches Douyin, a video sharing app for Chinese users. Its popularity inspires the company to spin off a version for foreign audiences called TikTok.

November 2017: ByteDance acquires Musical.ly for US$1 billion. Nine months later, ByteDance merges it with TikTok. Powered by an algorithm that encourages binge-watching, users begin to share a wide variety of video on the app, including dance moves, kitchen food preparation and various “challenges” to perform, record and post acts that range from serious to satirical.

February 2019: Rapper Lil Nas X releases the country-trap song Old Town Road on TikTok, where it goes viral and pushes the song to a record 17 weeks in the #1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The phenomenon kicks off a wave of TikTok videos from musical artists who suddenly see TikTok as a critical way to reach fans. Separately, TikTok settles federal charges of violating US child-privacy laws and agrees to pay a US$5.7 million fine.

September 2019: The Washington Post reports that while images of Hong Kong protests and police crackdowns are common on most social media sites, they are strangely absent on TikTok. The same story notes that TikTok posts with the #trump2020 tag received more than 70 million views.

The company insists that TikTok content moderation, conducted in the US, is not responsible and says the app is a place for entertainment, not politics.

October 2019: US politicians begin to raise alarms about TikTok’s influence, calling for a federal investigation of its Musical.ly acquisition and a national security probe into TikTok and other Chinese-owned apps. That investigation begins in November, according to news reports.

December 2019: The Pentagon recommends that all US military personnel delete TikTok from all phones, personal and government-issued. Some services ban the app on military-owned phones. In January, the Pentagon bans the app from all military phones.

TikTok becomes the second-most downloaded app in the world, according to data from analytics firm SensorTower.

May 2020: Privacy groups file a complaint alleging TikTok is still violating US child-protection laws and flouting a 2019 settlement agreement. The company “takes the issue of safely seriously” and continues to improve safeguards, it says. 

July 2020: President Donald Trump says he is considering banning TikTok as retaliation for China’s alleged mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Separately, India bans TikTok and dozens of other Chinese apps in response to a border clash with China.

August 2020: Trump issues a sweeping but vague executive order banning American companies from any “transaction” with ByteDance and its subsidiaries, including TikTok. Several days later, he issues a second order demanding that ByteDance divest itself of TikTok’s US operations within 90 days.

Microsoft confirms it is exploring the acquisition of TikTok. The deal never materialises and neither does a similar overture from Oracle and Walmart. TikTok, meanwhile, sues the Trump administration for alleged violation of due process in its executive orders.

November 2020: Joe Biden is elected president. He does not offer a new policy on TikTok and will not take office until January, but Trump’s plans to force a sale of TikTok start to unravel anyway. The Trump administration extends the deadlines it had imposed on ByteDance and TikTok and eventually lets them slide altogether.

February 2021: Newly sworn-in President Joe Biden postpones the legal cases involving Trump’s plan to ban TikTok, effectively bringing them to a halt.

September 2021: TikTok announces it has more than a billion monthly active users.

April 2022: TikTok becomes the most downloaded app in the world, beating out Instagram, according to SensorTower data.

June 2022: BuzzFeed reports that China-based ByteDance employees have repeatedly accessed the nonpublic information of TikTok users, based on leaked recordings from more than 80 internal TikTok meetings. TikTok responds with a vague comment touting its commitment to security that does not directly address the BuzzFeed report.

TikTok also announces it has migrated its user data to US servers managed by the US tech firm Oracle. But that does not prevent fresh alarm among US officials about the risk of Chinese authorities accessing US user data.

December 2022: FBI Director Chris Wrap raises national security concerns about TikTok, warning that Chinese officials could manipulate the app’s recommendation algorithm to influence operations.

February 2023: The White House gives federal agencies 30 days to ensure TikTok is deleted from all government-issued mobile devices. Both the FBI and the Federal Communications Commission warn that ByteDance could share TikTok user data with China’s authoritarian government.

March 2024: A Bill to ban TikTok or force its sale to a US company gathers steam in Congress. TikTok brings dozens of its creators to Washington to tell lawmakers to back off while emphasising changes the company has made to protect user data. TikTok also annoys legislators by sending notifications to users urging them to “speak up now” or risk seeing TikTok banned; users then flood congressional offices with calls.

Legislators grill TikTok CEO Chew Shou Zi Chew at a six-hour congressional hearing where Chew, a Singapore citizen, attempts to push back on assertions that TikTok and ByteDance are tools of the Chinese government.

The House of Representatives passes the TikTok ban-or-sell Bill.

April 2024: The Senate follows suit, sending the Bill to President Biden, who signs it.

May 2024: TikTok and its Chinese parent company ByteDance sue the US federal government to challenge a law that would force the sale of ByteDance’s stake or face a ban, saying that the law is unconstitutional.

June 2024: Former president Donald Trump joins TikTok and begins posting campaign-related content. 

July 2024: Vice President Kamala Harris joins TikTok and also begins posting campaign-related material.

Dec 6, 2024: A federal appeals court panel unanimously upheld a law that could lead to a ban on TikTok, handing a resounding defeat to the popular social media platform as it fights for its survival in the US.

Dec 16, 2024: Trump tells a news conference that he has a “warm spot” in his heart for TikTok.

Dec 27, 2024: President-elect Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court to pause the potential TikTok ban from going into effect until his administration can pursue a “political resolution” to the issue.

Jan 17, 2025: The Supreme Court unanimously upheld the federal law banning TikTok beginning unless it is sold by its China-based parent company, holding that the risk to national security posed by its ties to China overcomes concerns about limiting speech by the app. A ban is set to into effect on Jan 19.

Jan 18, 2025: TikTok users in the United States were prevented from watching videos on the popular social media platform just hours before a federal ban was set to take effect.

The company’s app was also removed from prominent app stores, including the ones operated by Apple and Google, while its website told users that the short-form video platform was no longer available.

Jan 19, 2025: Shortly after the app went dark for US users, Trump said he would issue an executive order upon taking office to grant TikTok an extension so that it could remain online.

A few hours later, TikTok restored service to users in the United States, saying that Trump had provided “the necessary clarity and assurance to our service providers that they will face no penalties providing TikTok to over 170 million Americans”.

Trump proposed new terms of a deal in which he said the US would have “a 50 per cent ownership position in a joint venture” that would be “set up between the US and whichever purchase we so choose”. But the details remained murky and it was unclear whether Trump was proposing control by the US government or another company.

Trump did not elaborate during a rally Sunday night, where he hailed the move. “As of today, TikTok is back,” he said. “We have no choice. We have to save it.”