What’s Happening to TikTok?

You’re probably reading this on your phone, right?. Maybe you just scrolled TikTok before opening this article?

You’ll notice the app works perfectly fine.

Except according to the United States Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision handed down in January 2025, TikTok is banned.

So how are you still watching 15-second videos of someone’s grandma making lasagna?

Good question.

The answer involves four executive orders, a deal that may or may not exist, a Chinese government that won’t confirm anything, and a senator literally writing letters asking “wait, is this real?”

Welcome to TikTok in 2025, where 170 million Americans exist in legal limbo and nobody (including the people supposedly negotiating this deal) seems to know what’s actually happening.

If our anonymous browsing guide has taught us anything, it’s that when tech companies and governments get vague about data and control, users should pay attention. 

So let’s dig into what’s actually going on with TikTok, why your app still works despite being banned, and what this mess means for your data, your feed, and the future of how the U.S. regulates tech platforms.

The Ban That Happened (Sort Of)

Let’s lay out the facts first.

In April 2024, Congress passed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act with overwhelming bipartisan support. The House voted 352-65. The Senate voted 79-18. President Biden signed it into law ^[1].

The law was straightforward: TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance had to sell the app’s U.S. operations or face a nationwide ban by January 19, 2025.

The justification? National security concerns about data collection and potential Chinese government influence. According to the Supreme Court’s ruling, ByteDance is subject to Chinese laws requiring it to “assist or cooperate” with the Chinese government’s “intelligence work” ^[2]. 

We all know TikTok collects massive amounts of personal data: age, phone number, precise location, device information, keystroke patterns, contact lists (including data about people who don’t even use TikTok), and the content of private messages ^[2]. But this level of data collection isn’t unique to TikTok. A 2024 Federal Trade Commission report found that Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, X (Twitter), and other major platforms all “engaged in vast surveillance of consumers” with similarly extensive data collection practices ^[14]. The difference? TikTok’s Chinese ownership made it a target.

ByteDance challenged the law in court. They lost at the appeals level. They appealed to the Supreme Court.

On January 17, 2025, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the ban ^[2].

Two days later, on January 19, TikTok briefly went dark for U.S. users. The app displayed a message explaining the situation and thanking users.

Then, hours later, it came back online.

President Trump, who had just taken office, signed an executive order directing the Department of Justice not to enforce the law for 90 days while his administration negotiated a deal ^[3]. Apple and Google, who faced billions in potential fines for hosting a banned app, put TikTok back in their app stores after Trump promised not to penalize them.

That was 10 months ago.

Since then, Trump has extended the deadline three more times. We’re now on the fourth extension ^[4].

The app works. You can download it. You can post videos. You can scroll for hours. But according to the highest court in the land, none of this should be happening.

So what’s the actual plan to resolve this?

The Deal That Might Exist

Well, here’s where it starts to get murky.