TikTok inches closer to US ban in January 2025

TikTok is one step closer to becoming banned in the United States (US). A federal appeals court panel have unanimously upheld a law that could lead to a ban on the video-sharing app by 19 January 2025. 

The three judges denied TikTok's petition to overturn the law which requires TikTok to break ties with its China-based parent company ByteDance or face a ban. In court documents seen by MARKETING-INTERACTIVE, TikTok said that the divestiture is impractical and that it is "more difficult if not impossible". 

In addition, TikTok argued that the law singles out TikTok and that a ban would infringe on the First Amendment rights of its users in America. 

Don't miss: Bill that could ban TikTok passed: What does this mean for marketers?

In response, the judges said that the government has offered "persuasive evidence demonstrating that the act is narrowly tailored to protect national security". The judges also disagreed with TikTok's argument that it infringes on the First Amendment rights of American users adding that the law was "carefully crafted to deal with only control by foreign adversary". 

"We recognise that this decision has significant implications for TikTok and its users. Unless TikTok executes a qualified divestiture by January 19, 2025 — or the president grants a 90-day extension based upon progress towards a qualified divestiture, — its platform will effectively be unavailable in the United States, at least for a time," said the judges.

Consequently, TikTok’s millions of users will need to find alternative media of communication.

"That burden is attributable to the People Republic of China’s hybrid commercial threat to US national security, not to the US government, which engaged with TikTok through a multi-year process in an effort to find an alternative solution. The government acted solely to protect the freedom from a foreign adversary nation and to limit that adversary's ability to gather data on people in the United States," it added. 

In response to the ruling, TikTok said: 

"The Supreme Court has an established historical record of protecting Americans' right to free speech, and we expect they will do just that on this important constitutional issue. Unfortunately, the TikTok ban was conceived and pushed through based upon inaccurate, flawed and hypothetical information, resulting in outright censorship of the American people. The TikTok ban, unless stopped, will silence the voices of over 170 million Americans here in the US and around the world on January 19th, 2025." 

MARKETING-INTERACTIVE has reached out to TikTok for further information. 

Earlier in March this year, The US House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill that would give TikTok's Chinese owner ByteDance about six months to divest the US assets of the app, or a face a ban.  The Bill was passed 352-65, with bipartisan support. However, it faces a more uncertain path in the Senate, where some favour a different approach to regulating foreign-owned apps posting security concerns. 

In response to the bill, TikTok urged its user in the US to call on Congress to stop a shutdown of the app. TikTok also called the bill a ban of the app. 

"This bill is an outright ban of TikTok, no matter how much the authors try to disguise it. This legislation will trample the First Amendment rights of 170 million Americans and deprive five million small businesses of a platform they rely on to grow and create jobs," said a TikTok spokesperson when MARKETING-INTERACTIVE reached out in March.

Currently, TikTok has over 170 million users on the app. If enacted, the app will no longer be available in app stores or accessible on US-based web hosting services. 

What does this mean for marketers?

In conversation with marketers earlier in the year, Mike Proulx, VP, research director at Forrester said that a ban on TikTok will hand an effective monopoly to Meta’s Reels — the company’s short-form video product. “Absent of TikTok, users will flock to Reels, period — leaving just YouTube Shorts as its sole competitor. That means Meta is the likely beneficiary of TikTok’s ad revenue in a TikTok-less world, as well,” he said.

Meanwhile, Nimesh Desai, CEO of VML Singapore said that TikTok’s ban would have a deep impact on many within the creator community who use it for a livelihood. “Meta is likely to pounce on the opportunity to push reels and we are likely to see the status quo being disrupted,” he said. Nonetheless, the silver lining, said Desai is that with any disruption the net outcome tends to be better as structures put in place tend to get re-evaluated. This could then mean better ROI for advertising dollars, better experiences and possibly this time better controls that will address security and harmful effects.

Siddharth Surana, chief operating officer, Media360 Communications added that expectedly, some ad dollars will shift towards Meta, Snapchat, and YouTube Shorts for now, and creators will naturally diversify too. 

Agreeing with him is Ranganathan Somanathan, co-founder of RSquared Global Ventures, who said that it's likely one of the tech giants might acquire and help it to decouple from China. “As long as the platform is operational in some form, it will remain a strong contender to get consumer attention and therefore ad dollars,” he added.

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