President Donald Trump will be praised for saving the app that millions of American users make money off of; however, he is also the one who created the issue. The ban on the app isn’t just a ban on TikTok but a ban on every app that ByteDance owns. This ban has been a long time in the making and people will forget that it started in 2020 with Trump.
Before TikTok was TikTok it was Musical.ly. Musical.ly was bought in 2017 by ByteDance, and nine months after the purchase the app was renamed. In 2019 some U.S. officials started to get suspicious of the app calling for an investigation. The following year Trump issued two executive orders, one that was an “unspecified ban on dealings with the Chinese owners of consumer apps TikTok and WeChat”. The second one “gave the Chinese company ByteDance 90 days to divest itself of any assets used to support the popular TikTok app in the United States”
In reaction,TikTok sued the Trump administration over the attempted ban. Former President Joe Biden was then elected in November. Before he took office, the Trump administration planned to force the sale, but ultimately let the deadline extend. In February of 2021, Biden then postponed the legal cases involving the TikTok ban.
Between 2021 and 2025, the app continued to grow in popularity. In 2022 TikTok became the most downloaded app in the world. TikTok also worked to ease tensions with the U.S. by moving data to U.S. firm Oracle. However, that didn’t stop the ban, and in March 2024, the House of Representatives passed the TikTok ban-or-sell bill, and the Senate followed and then sent it to Biden who signed it.
On Saturday, Jan. 18 the TikTok app became unavailable to U.S users. When someone entered the app, they were shown, "Sorry, TikTok isn’t available right now. A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S. Unfortunately, that means you can’t use TikTok for now. We are fortunate that Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office. Please stay tuned!”
On Saturday, Trump told NBC that he will “most likely” give TikTok a 90-day reprieve from a potential ban in the U.S. after he takes office Monday. Creator James Charles recently took to Instagram talking about the ban saying “Now I’m rooting for Trump?! Ew! God, like Make America f--king Great again I guess.”
Now that TikTok has been reinstated, Trump will be credited for saving that app. But one can argue he started this issue so he could be the hero, and gain a larger Generation Z following. The Biden administration even stated that they would not enforce the ban, meaning TikTok did not have to shut down its services. But the app did shut down services voluntarily, making it a point to say Trump will fix it.
While the majority of the focus is on TikTok it is important to mention how the Trump administration has planned to start mass deportations within a day of his inauguration. Trump will be praised for potentially reinstating an app, while simultaneously ruining millions of people's lives.
Cassie is a junior studying communications at Ohio University. Please note the views expressed in this column do not reflect those of The Post. Want to talk to Cassie? Email her at cb086021@ohio.edu.
