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Trump plays dealmaker as questions surround TikTok

9 1
22.01.2025

President Trump's efforts to force TikTok's Chinese parent company to sell the popular app, all while keeping it available to U.S. users despite Sunday’s ban, raise a slew of legal and practical questions about the platform's future.

Trump signed an executive order Monday delaying enforcement of a law that would ban TikTok in the U.S. in a bid to create "a joint partnership" in control of the app. The order and those efforts, however, are expected to face lawsuits and procedural hangups.

“President Trump’s executive order doesn’t save TikTok," said Ramya Krishnan, senior staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute, which filed a brief supporting TikTok at the Supreme Court.

"It just makes the app entirely dependent on his whims and consolidates his power over the digital public sphere," Krishnan continued. "This isn’t a win for free speech and it certainly isn’t a win for the rule of law. Congress’s TikTok ban is terrible policy, but overriding a duly enacted law by executive fiat sets a dangerous and anti-democratic precedent.”

Trump’s executive order — one of more than two dozen he signed on his first day in office — instructed his attorney general not to enforce the law for 75 days, granting TikTok a temporary reprieve.

The law requires TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, to divest from the app within 270 days or face a U.S. ban. The clock ran out Sunday, leading TikTok to shut down access in the U.S. late Saturday night.

While the Biden administration said Friday it would leave enforcement to the Trump administration, TikTok argued that the White House had not provided the “necessary clarity and assurance to the service providers.”

After a 12-hour blackout, TikTok began restoring service to its American users midday Sunday, after Trump announced his plans to sign an executive order suspending........

© The Hill


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