“Sociable” is the most recent commentary on necessary social media developments and trends from industry expert Andrew Hutchinson of Social Media Today.
Amid ongoing discussions about its future in the U.S., TikTok has now been reinstated for download in each the Google Play and Apple App stores in America, after each corporations received official assurances that they are going to not be fined for facilitating access to the technically banned app.
Under the Biden-approved “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act,” TikTok was required to be sold to a U.S.-based owner by January nineteenth, or it might be banned in the region. No sale was arranged, but following his inauguration on January twentieth, President Trump signed an executive order that grants TikTok a further 75 days to rearrange a deal that meets the bill’s requirements.
Though, technically, the order in itself doesn’t nullify the previously approved law. Trump has offered further assurances to TikTok’s U.S.-based providers that they won’t be penalized for violating the bill, which was enough for Oracle, which has continued to support the operations of the app, ensuring that it stays available to users who’d already downloaded it onto their device.
But Apple and Google took a more cautious approach, removing TikTok, together with CapCut, Lemon8, and other ByteDance-owned apps, from their respective stores.
But now, newly instated Attorney-General Pam Bondi has provided official, legal confirmation that each will probably be secure from future prosecution in consequence of allowing TikTok to stay available for download.
Which implies that TikTok (together with other ByteDance apps) will probably be fully accessible in the U.S. for no less than the following 50 or so days, which is when Trump’s 75-day extension on the negotiations will run out.
The Trump Administration has reportedly discussed a U.S. TikTok take care of several big tech players, including Microsoft, Oracle, and Amazon. It’s not clear what form any such agreement would take, but Trump has floated various proposals, including one that may see the U.S. government itself taking a stake in the app.
But any deal would also should be agreed upon by Chinese authorities, and ByteDance has been working on that end to determine a compromise plan that can work for the CCP.
TikTok officials have also been in regular discussion with the Trump team, and it appears that evidently those meetings could have resulted in this official confirmation on TikTok downloads from the AG.
So at once, TikTok is back to normal in the U.S., but there’s no word as yet on a proper agreement for its ongoing access to U.S. users.
The expectation is that Trump’s affections for the app, on which he has over 15 million followers, will eventually facilitate a deal that can keep TikTok available. But nonetheless, Trump did also seek advice from the app as “Tic Tac” several times in a press conference this week.
So who knows, really, but TikTok has till early April to work out the small print.
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