Donald Trump has made plenty of promises and threats about what might happen when he returns to office in January, most of which are continuations — and intensifications — of the policies he pursued last term. On the matter of TikTok, though, the president-elect is executing a complete and total 180: Trump, who once proposed banning the app, is now claiming he wants to save it.

If nothing changes between now and January 19th, TikTok will be banned in the U.S. one day before Trump’s inauguration. There are a number of ways it could avoid or delay this fate. Its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, could sell it, but ByteDance has ruled this out and previous talks with potential buyers have gone nowhere. TikTok could win its case against the ban in federal court; however, after a disastrous hearing in September, legal analysts aren’t confident in the company’s chances. Far more likely is a court-ordered or officially granted delay of at least 90 days, which would punt the issue to the incoming administration. The prospect of a TikTok ban has remained just over the horizon for so long that a lot of people — not just members of the general public but millions of TikTok creators (and advertisers!) who depend on it economically — have stopped taking it seriously, and I don’t really blame them. Shutting down a hugely popular social-media platform would be both unprecedented and disorienting. It sounds made up! But it’s also written into law.

And though it may be hard to remember now, this all started with our once and future leader. In 2020, just two years after TikTok officially launched in the U.S., then-President Trump attempted to ban TikTok by executive order, citing threats of blackmail and espionage and privacy violations by the Chinese government. By that point, TikTok had already been scrutinized by Democratic and Republican lawmakers. But Trump popularized the option of simply outlawing it — or forcing its sale to an American company. “As far as TikTok is concerned, we’re banning them from the United States,” he said in July of that year. “I have that authority.”

In the months and years that followed, TikTok explored a sale, restructured........

© Daily Intelligencer