Uncertainty hangs over TikTok’s availability in the U.S, as the company pleads for a concrete assurance from President Biden’s outgoing administration against imposing a ban.
Following the Supreme Court’s affirmation to enact a law that forces TikTok’s owner, ByteDance, to sell it or face a ban, a cloud of uncertainty has engulfed the app’s fate. A deal seems unlikely within a short span of two days prior to the law’s enforcement, pointing to TikTok’s potential app store removal as of January 19.
This predicament occurs shortly before Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration. The to-be president, who made a plea for the Supreme Court to delay the ban, aspires to find a resolution to preserve the well-loved platform.
Even though White House Press Secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, reiterated Biden’s standpoint – that TikTok should be accessible to Americans under the stipulation of American or security-complaint ownership – she pointed to the next administration to take charge of enacting the law.
The Justice Department Deputy Attorney General, Lisa Monaco, indicated that implementing the law post-January 19 would be a gradual process.
In contrast, TikTok’s stand is that both Biden and the Department of Justice have not provided adequate clarity to the service providers who are critical to maintaining TikTok’s reach over 170 million Americans. In a statement, TikTok expressed that without an immediate and definitive statement to comfort these service providers about non-enforcement, the app would go dark on January 19.
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