Incoming US President Donald Trump wants a ban on social media app TikTok not to be introduced for the time being. On Friday, the Republican asked the US Supreme Court to postpone the ban of TikTok from the app stores of Apple and Google, which takes effect on January 19, until after his inauguration as president, which takes place one day later. American media report this.
TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, has until January 19 to sell its US units. If the company does not do this, the popular app will disappear from the app stores. The US Supreme Court has yet to rule on the ban. With his appeal, Trump is trying to persuade the court not to enforce this ban.
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During his first term as president, Trump tried to ban TikTok from the United States, but the 78-year-old Republican has since turned heel. At recent election rallies, he criticized the ban on TikTok and promised to “save” the app. During the campaign, he also posted videos to reach potential young voters. This was often aimed at men with a machistic streak.
In the US and many other countries, there have been calls for a (partial) ban on TikTok for some time. Data sent via the app could fall into the hands of the Chinese government. In addition, there is a lot of criticism of the app because of its addictive effect, the failure to censor images that can lead to mental problems and eating disorders in children and young people.
Trump will not take office for more than three weeks, but has already been busy launching political plans since his election win. Last week he, together with tech billionaire and political ally Elon Musk, pushed for one shutdown of the US government. He is also already negotiating with other countries about the introduction of tariffs and threatened extremely harsh action in Gaza if Hamas does not release the remaining Israeli hostages. He has already hosted several international leaders at his estate, including TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew.
About 170 million Americans use TikTok. When the ban comes into effect, people who have installed the app can continue to use it. However, it will become unusable over time because TikTok can no longer provide updates and support. New users can no longer download the app.