Despite being used by 170 million people in America, on Sunday TikTok went dark … but not of its own accord.
How did a Chinese app become embroiled in such a controversy? Let’s go down memory lane so you understand the journey so far.
In 2012 ByteDance was founded in China by 29 year-old computer engineer Zhang Yiming. Its first hit product was Toutiao, a personalized news aggregator for Chinese users.
In 2014, another app, Musical.ly, used to post short lipsyncing music videos, was established in China by Alex Zhu and Luyu Yang with global business intentions.
In 2016, ByteDance launched Douyin, a video sharing app. for Chinese users.
In 2017, ByteDance acquired Musical.ly for $1 billion, merging it with Douyin to form TikTok for international markets.
All good so far.
By 2019, TikTok had become the 2nd most downloaded app. in the World. Wow.
Meanwhile, the U.S. government was becoming nervous about a Chinese-based app that had such tremendous momentum. It called for a national security probe into TikTok and other Chinese-owned apps. That same year, the Pentagon banned TikTok from all military devices.
In 2020, mired in border conflicts with China, India was concerned about national security and sovereignty, and banned several Chinese apps., including TikTok. Despite a flurry of newly launched Indian copycats, YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels eventually largely replaced TikTok. India is now the biggest market for YouTube (500 million monthly users) and Instagram (362 monthly users).
Despite losing the Indian market, TikTok users doubled in size between 2020 and 2024.
In 2020, President Donald Trump said that he was considering banning TikTok as retaliation for China’s mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic. He issued an order banning American companies from conducting any transactions with ByteDance and its subsidiaries, including TikTok. Later on, he issued a second order demanding that ByteDance divest itself of TikTok’s U.S. operations within 90 days. TikTok sued the Trump administration for allegedly violating due process in its executive orders. The Trump administration eventually extended its own deadline.
Trump left office and the newly elected President, Joe Biden, postponed the whole shebang.
By 2021, TikTok had more than a billion monthly active users and, in 2022, it became the most downloaded app in the World. Big times. Big money.
Looking for growth opportunities, huge institutional investors, many of them American, took positions in privately held ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok.
Facing continued concerns by the U.S. government, in 2022, TikTok announced it had migrated its user data to U.S. servers managed by U.S. tech firm Oracle. Needless to say, Oracle was happy for the business, which analysts say provides $480-$800 million in annual revenue.
In 2023, the Biden White House gave federal agencies 30 days to ensure TikTok was deleted from all government-issued mobile devices. Legislators also grilled TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew at a congressional hearing. Their concern? TikTok and ByteDance could be tools of the Chinese government.
In 2024, the House of Representatives passed the TikTok Ban-or-sell bill. The Senate sent the bill to President Biden, who signed it. TikTok and ByteDance then sued the U.S. federal government saying that the law is unconstitutional.
Presidential candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris posted campaign-related material on TikTok.
A federal appeals court panel unanimously upheld a law that could lead to a TikTok ban. President-elect Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court to pause the TikTok ban until his new administration could pursue a “political resolution”. Last Friday, the Court unanimously upheld the federal law banning TikTok unless it is sold by ByteDance. The Court felt that the risk to national security is greater than that of limiting freedom of speech.
The ban went into effect on Sunday, and TikTok went dark.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, President-Elect Donald Trump had already invited TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew to attend his inauguration. Service to TikTok users in the United States was restored just a few hours after it went dark, backed up with a promise made by Trump to issue an executive order postponing the ban on his first day as President.
What’s next? That won’t be clear for a while yet. As Donald Trump says: “We’re looking into it”.
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