Every teen and young adult in America’s worst fear has came true, the TikTok ban passed. Now in action, ByteDance (the owners of TikTok) has until January 19th of next year to sell TikTok to an American company or else it will be banned throughout the US.
Former owner of the Dodgers and real estate billionaire, Frank McCourt. said on Wednesday, May 15th that he is planning on negotiating with ByteDance to buy TikTok and ensure that TikTok is a part of making a healthier internet. Former Treasury Secretary, Steven Mnuchin, announced that he would also be putting a bid in to buy the company in March, and so did Kevin O’Leary, the Canadian chairman of the private venture capital firm, O’Leary Ventures.
However, TikTok has made it clear that they don’t want to be bought and are instead trying to fight the ban legally. ByteDance has sued to try to block the law. In the lawsuit, TikTok plans to show that the law is an unconstitutional exercise of government power that not only affects the platform, but also the millions of American users and small businesses.
A separate lawsuit is also taking place involving 8 creators on the app that are also challenging the potential ban. They are claiming that banning the app violates First Amendment rights by restricting the freedom of speech. Collectively, they have about 14 million followers on TikTok, and several of them use the TikTok Creator Fund and promote their business on that app. If it was banned, they would lose their source of income. TikTok has not commented on this separate lawsuit.
TikTok contributes significantly to my income and allowed the opportunity to be a full-time creator for almost four years now … This (new law) is being driven by larger politics, but the end result is going to harm a lot of people, including me.
— Topher Townsend, a suing creator
If there is a TikTok ban, details are still being worked out about how to implement the ban. However, soon people speculate that you could get around it with a VPN if you already have the app downloaded before the ban. That has not been proven to be true or false though.
Others claim that they will turn to Instagram Reels, Facebook Reels, YouTube Shorts, etc. It won’t be the same though so hopefully TikTok and the government will be able to figure things out and our beloved TikTok can stay.
