TikTok's U.S. Dancing Days May Be Numbered

The U.S. government’s on-again, off-again obsession with TikTok is hurtling toward a dramatic climax. A federal appeals court ruled Friday that ByteDance, TikTok’s China-based parent company, must sell the app by January 19 or face an effective U.S. ban. The court cited national security concerns, bolstered by allegations that TikTok is cozy with the Chinese Communist Party. ByteDance is already heading to the Supreme Court to fight the decision.

If ByteDance doesn’t comply, Apple, Google, and internet hosts will have to cut TikTok off, essentially ghosting it out of existence. The law, signed by President Joe Biden in April, enjoyed bipartisan support, fueled by Congressional fears of data harvesting and covert content manipulation by Beijing. TikTok, for its part, called the ban “outright censorship” and a “flawed” attack on free speech. Bold words for a company whose ties to China keep raising eyebrows.

But there’s another layer to this tale of geopolitical intrigue: President-elect Donald Trump. During his first term, Trump tried and failed to ban TikTok. Now, as he prepares for round two in the White House, his stance is murky. And that's possibly because Jeff Yass, a billionaire GOP megadonor with major ByteDance ties, is in the mix. Yass’s stakes in ByteDance and Trump’s Truth Social parent company have raised speculation about whether business interests might sway policy.

Judge Douglas Ginsburg, in Friday’s opinion, dismissed TikTok’s constitutional arguments and emphasized that the law targets foreign adversary control, not a specific company. Still, with the Supreme Court poised to weigh in and a politically fraught enforcement deadline looming, this TikTok saga is far from over.

For now, 170 million American TikTok users have six weeks to scroll, dance, and meme like it’s their last. YOLO.