The U.S. Supreme Court has decided to uphold the TikTok ban. Accordingly, TikTok announced that it would temporarily terminate its service in the US starting on the nineteenth (local time). As well as, President-elect Donald Trump said he spoke with Chinese President Xi Jinping about this issue and said he would save TikTok. Ultimately, whether or not TikTok’s service can be resumed is as much as President-elect Trump, and it is anticipated to expand right into a bargaining chip with China.
In line with Reuters and Bloomberg, the U.S. Supreme Court announced on the seventeenth that it supported the enforcement of the TikTok law by a vote of 9 to 0. Accordingly, if ByteDance doesn’t sell TikTok to an American company by the nineteenth, the service can be terminated.
The day before, Biden administration officials announced that they might not implement law enforcement for the vacations on the nineteenth and twentieth. As well as, White House press secretary Carine Jean-Pierre said in a press release after the Supreme Court ruling, “Given the timeliness of the problem, we recognize that enforcement measures have to be left to the following administration, which takes office on Monday.” Because of this the brand new Trump administration, which takes office on the twentieth, will take charge of law enforcement from the twenty first.
Nevertheless, ByteDance said, “Unless the Biden administration issues a definitive statement that it would decelerate law enforcement, TikTok will suspend services on the nineteenth.” Because of this you can not rely solely on informal comments. Moreover, if you happen to violate TikTok laws, you may be subject to astronomical fines of as much as $5,000 per user.
At the identical time, TikTok CEO Shouji Chu said in a TikTok video, “We appreciate President Trump’s commitment to working with us to seek out an answer to make TikTok available in the US.”
Accordingly, starting on the nineteenth, TikTok in the US will disappear from the Google and Apple app stores, and technical support can be discontinued. If security updates, etc. are interrupted, the service may cause problems and will steadily be discontinued.
Then, on the seventeenth, President-elect Trump said through True Social, “I just spoke with President Xi Jinping of China. It was a excellent call for each China and the US. I sit up for working together to resolve many issues and start immediately.” revealed. It is alleged that the content of the decision included TikTok and included trade and pending issues between the US and China.
In an interview with CNN, he also said, “Ultimately, it’s as much as me to unravel the issue,” and “We’ll see what I do.” Trump said the day before that he wouldn’t let TikTok disappear.
Nevertheless, the particular method was not explained. Accordingly, evaluation is emerging that various scenarios are possible for this problem in the longer term.
Initially, on the last day of his term, the Biden administration instructs the Justice Department to stop enforcing the TikTok law. That is a press release from the spokesperson that strongly hinted at the chance.
There’s also a option to delay the implementation of the law by 90 days, assuming that TikTok negotiates a sale with an American company, but that is unlikely as TikTok has stated that it just isn’t officially considering a sale.
As well as, the U.S. Congress may create a brand new law to abolish or extend the TikTok law, which is definitely strongly advocated by several lawmakers. Nevertheless, on this case, we cannot guarantee how long it would take.
Lastly, ByteDance announced its intention to sell TikTok, and the Trump administration granted a 90-day extension. After all, there have to be a guarantee that the sale will actually happen.
Because of this, weight is being placed on the proven fact that President-elect Trump spoke on the phone with President Xi Jinping. The Chinese government owns a significant stake in ByteDance and is able to order its sale.
Nevertheless, the Chinese government, which is under threat of tariffs from President-elect Trump and is already subject to strong artificial intelligence (AI) chip regulations from the Biden administration, is unlikely to present it up easily. Subsequently, the evaluation is that there’s a high possibility of coping with the brand new administration using TikTok as an excuse.
In this manner, TikTok is more prone to be used as a brand new negotiation card between the US and China beyond an easy social media service. Because of this, it seems that the Biden administration’s try and ban TikTok in the US didn’t achieve much success ultimately, and TikTok has nothing to lose within the ‘geopolitical game of chicken’.
Reporter Lim Da-jun ydj@aitimes.com
