Clock ticking for TikTok as US Supreme Court upholds ban The US Supreme Court has upheld a law requiring TikTok to either divest from its Chinese parent ByteDance or face a ban in the United States. The decision eliminates the final legal obstacle to the federal government forcing a shutdown of the platform for US users on January 19. The SCOTUS issued a rapid decision [PDF] on the …
Needing to sideload the app, and sign-up with a VPN provider, will be enough hassle that 90% of people won't bother.
The 10% that might do it, will soon find it turned into a barren wasteland without new content being created that would be of interest to US audiences.
You really think 10% of people would bother with those hurdles? Not even 1%. Heck I doubt anywhere close to 10% even would know that it was possible to work around the ban, regardless of whether they'd be willing to take those steps. And as you point out pointless because everyone else would be gone.
Maybe.
OTOH, anyone who has ever worked with teen agers will tell you that they are just as clever/smart as adults and are prone to regard rules as challenges rather than imperatives. All it takes is for just one of them to find an easy way around this ruling and 60% of the teen age and young adult population will quite possibly know how to stay on TikTok within 72 hours. A great many, and not just teens, might do exactly that.
Not all teen age mentalities are in the 13-19 year age bracket. One need look no further than the typical politician to recognize how many folks never develop beyond the maturity and social attitudes of a confused 13 year old.
You haven't been near many of them, have you? The amount of effort they put into things they care about is a lot higher than the amount they put into things they should care about but don't. That describes a lot of adults too. Keep in mind that, within a couple days of a shutdown, there will be several Youtube videos giving step-by-step instructions for using a VPN to access TikTok, whichever one sponsored that video, and that makes the effort very small as there's no research or testing required.
It generally takes more than a couple hours of shutdown for someone to start making those. For one thing, the person who makes the video has to test that their method works, at least often enough that people buy the thing they said to, and that won't be an option until the service is offline. You can't know how to get around an ISP block until there is an ISP block and you can see how it's done. I remain convinced that, if it had shut down for longer, someone would want to access it and they would have described their way for doing it. It probably wouldn't appeal to users in the long term because the service would be degraded to some degree and all the people using it to make money would have stopped, but someone would have done it in the short term.
While the app may get removed from the Google and Apple app stores in the US, are they also going to block access to the TikTok.com website?
As although ive never used and have no intention of using it, I do know you can access TikTok from a web browser but how well it functions compared to the native apps i don't know. But Im guessing if the web version doesn't get blocked then the functionality will get vastly improved if its a work around that people start to use.
Via a browser rather than an app is the only way I will use the admittedly limited presence i have on social media. I have accounts on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter but only ever access them from Firefox using the containers add on so they stay in their own sandbox. And not even logged into any of them yet in 2025.
The social media companies couldn't pay me to install their spyware mobile apps on my phone.
No, and there is nothing stopping those who have the app installed from continuing to use it. I'm not sure but I assume that the ban also prevents influencers from getting paid, and that's what they really care about. If they were allowed to keep using it but no one could make any money it wouldn't affect 99% of users but the whining from the 1% who are affected would be trying to egg the other 99% on into caring.
[[Page 138 STAT. 958]] Definitions...The term ``foreign adversary controlled application'' means a website, desktop application, mobile application, or augmented or immersive technology application that is operated, directly or indirectly (including through a parent company, subsidiary, or affiliate), by [the bad guys]
It includes the website.
"It includes the website."
And your plan for enforcing THAT is ... what? Install a national firewall in order to protect the children? Remove TiKTok from every DNS provider on the planet? And what's to prevent users from simply using one of the site's IP address to access it? I expect that TikTok or friends could come up with new IP addresses a lot faster than ISPs and such can install blocks,
TikTok is a business which takes in money and pays out money. Using banks. The banks operating in the US can be told to block transactions going to or from TikTok. That way, TikTok gets no income from US advertisers and can't pay US content creators.
Additionally, TikTok will have servers in the US for better performance. Those servers will go away.
A slow website that doesn't pay content creators and can't accept advertising from US companies, is a lot worse than the current app. Lots less people will use it.
And it won't be profitable. It will have to pay more for Internet traffic because it's now paying to send that traffic across an ocean instead of having local servers. And a large revenue source was cut off. And there will be less content so less view time so less scope for adverts.
The money problem is definitely real, and it's the main reason why most of it will shut down in the US. The servers are not a problem. Canada has lots of places where you can rent or place servers. Canada also uses TikTok, and it has not banned it. If, for some reason, TikTok was willing to continue operating in the US market without getting advertisers to pay them, they would do it from Canadian and possibly Mexican servers and responsiveness would not be the problem. I don't think they're going to try because:
1. They would have no reason to do it. They want to make money, and they wouldn't be.
2. They probably still think that Trump's going to reverse this shortly, and if they're right, effort spent moving resources would be wasted.
3. If that doesn't happen, they probably think they stand a better chance at having it reversed by actually shutting down and having the most determined users complain loudly than by providing them a less functional version and letting those users gradually become bored with the service.
And your plan for enforcing THAT is ... what?
In the UK the major ISPs just DNS block the 'undesirable' sites. Of course you can manoeuvre around it because the internet and computers are endlessly flexible, but it's more hassle and know-how than most people are up for so it works well.
As far as I know there's always been strong pushback against DNS blocking in the US, but as this has already cleared the appeal to First Amendment in the Supreme Court it wouldn't be an unexpected enforcement method.
Belated reminder: the internet grew out of an effort to build an infrastructure that was tolerant to important nodes being nuked (as in literally the target on nuclear weapons).
As to the DNS: that's a different First Amendment issue. It's one thing to say ByteDance can't operate in the USA, but it's quite another thing to compel a DNS provider to block them. One is a simple infringement of one speaker's rights (which has been cleared by SCOTUS). The other is compelled speech, which has not.
Stop gibbering. The Executive branch *always* gets to set priorities, and in this case President Biden has decided that enforcing this stupid ban that the guy who takes office 12 hours after the ban comes into effect has stated he doesn't the ban, is daft. So only a total moron would decide to spend resources on a piece of stupidity, and only an even more total moron would get faux outraged about Joe deciding this ranks about number 457 on the list of top ten things to do on inauguration morning.
His job is to enforce the laws
"The executive power of the United States is vested in the President of the United States. That power includes prosecutorial discretion—the power to prosecute or decline to prosecute."
https://lawreview.richmond.edu/2018/04/08/the-president-prosecutorial-discretion-obstruction-of-justice-and-congress/
The presidential power of prosecutorial discretion is based on several Article II provisions, including the Executive Power Clause, the Take Care Clause, the Oath of Office Clause, and the Pardon Clause. Under Article II, the president may decline to prosecute or pardon certain violators of federal law. The Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed the broad discretion of the Executive Branch, holding that the decision “[w]hether to prosecute and what charge to file or bring before a grand jury are decisions that generally rest in the prosecutor’s discretion.”
https://journals.law.harvard.edu/jol/2015/10/15/prosecutorial-discretion-holder-memorandum/
The power to decline to prosecute appears very different to me to not allowing a law to go into effect. The SCOTUS ruling seems to make it clear it is a valid law which will go into effect as scheduled.
The only thing I am not clear on is what equivalence there is to "Royal Ascent" in the UK which formally makes it an actual law, makes breaking that law an unlawful act, and that includes not complying what it says must be done
If it becomes law now SCOTUS have made their ruling how can the law be ignored, the ban it imposes be suspended?
Perhaps someone familiar with the American legal landscape would care to explain for those of us who aren't?
The law went into effect, and the chief executive (POTUS, both the 46th and 47th) have directed their governments not to do anything. In the case of the 47th, he went further and ordered the DoJ that nothing that happens before he took office or up until the moratorium expires can be used in evidence.
The fines that Apple and Google would be liable for are far too big to risk on any president's word, especially one who is known for changing his mind at the drop of a hat. And there's nothing that would stop a future president from enforcing it, and collecting fines for all the time that it wasn't being enforced and should.
Apple and Google have no choice but to drop it from their app stores on the 19th. It is too risky to do otherwise. If it gets sold or Trump can strong arm his congress into repealing the ban they can always put it back.
Anyway removing it from the app store doesn't stop people who have already got it on their phones from using it. It just stops updates. I imagine the app could work well for a while with that arrangement. Maybe something about iOS 19 next fall would break it, or a future Android update, but they should be fine for a few months.
Enforcement would be the province of the DoJ, possibly involving the FCC.
Thanks to some recent SCOTUS rulings the President cannot violate the law and with this President in particular you'd have a hard time making a case for impeachment in the current Congress. So, yes, there's a little problem with enforcement. We can go after Google and Apple because they're big, American and so easy to find. Going after a global community -- the US isn't the only user base (and even if it drags along its 'allies' then its still a relatively small part of the global population) so there's no way you're going to shut down the application without doing enormous damage to the Internet (and the business of American global giants like Google, Apple and Meta.....ouch!)
Actually, the bit I object to is the notion of "Foreign Adversary". "Foreign Competitor", of course. But "Adversary" is all in the minds of US legislators and that segment of the public that's swallowed their Kool Aid. We've been treated to "missile gaps", South East Asian Dominos, "WMDs", "Mad Mullahs" and what-have-you for it seems like for ever and history has shown us time and again that its not so much a figment of imagination but a way to keep the public in a state of fear where they can be easily conned into accepting whatever crap's thrown at them. President Eisenhower warned about this in an address towards the end of his tenure and, unfortunately, his warnings have gone unheeded. The problem we have now is that this entire structure has painted itself into a corner -- its not capable of delivering what people need and its increasing appeals to irrational threats, "1984" style, just don't make sense, both internationally and internally. Put simply, "They're on to us".
I don't like social media myself but there's an entire international cultural milieu that does that forms a vibrant community. The reaction to this kind of legislation has been overwhelmingly negative from the users. Obviously, as established 'grown up' media pontificates, they're kids and they're get over it (or use the 'approved' American applications) but I think that's missing the point. The ban may well be ineffective but the reputational damage has been done and is likely to have long term repercussions for politicians. (....and speaking personally as an American, I positively resent the government telling me what to think or do, especially if their reasoning is weak, vague and obviously self-serving.)
How do you know the "people" you are (were) communicating with are real? They are just as likely to be russian, or nkorean, and even a high probability they are AI at this point. While we are at it.... what exactly, did you "create?"
shut it all down. It's nothing but a free for all for criminals.
My guess is frumpypants will hand over the whole thing to the russians, or to the middle east. Whoever offers him the most, and who ever tells him they won't release his videos with young girls.
The US is in very, very big trouble.
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