TikTok threatened with ban in the United States: Donald Trump would like to “keep that thing for a little while”

A little reprieve for TikTok? While the Chinese application is threatened with a ban in the United States, Donald Trump said on Sunday that he was in favor of it continuing to operate, at least for a while. “Maybe we should keep this thing for a little while,” the president-elect said at a rally in Phoenix, Arizona, reports Reuters.

Congress passed, by a large majority, a law in April requiring the Chinese owner of TikTok, ByteDance, to sell this social network by January 19, failing which the platform will be banned in the territory. This is accused of allowing Chinese authorities to unduly collect data on American users. The law thus aims to prevent the risks of espionage and manipulation by the Chinese authorities.

Donald Trump, who met the platform’s CEO, Shou Zi Chew, in mid-December, declared last Monday that he had a “soft spot” for TikTok because of the success of his electoral campaign on the application. The billionaire has 14.7 million subscribers since his registration in June 2024 and more than 107.2 million “likes”.

The law examined by the Supreme Court

The owners of TikTok, who claim 170 million active users in the United States, are trying to have the law overturned. They denounced “a massive and unprecedented restriction of freedom of speech” and repeatedly contested having transmitted information to the government in Beijing, while ensuring that they would refuse any possible request to this effect.

The application petitioned the United States Supreme Court on Monday to request a suspension of the application of this law. She agreed on Wednesday to look into this matter. She did not suspend the entry into force of the law, as requested by TikTok and Bytedance on Monday, but set the debates for January 10. They will focus on the question of whether this law violates the First Amendment of the American Constitution guaranteeing freedom of expression.

The company would now count on the sympathy of the elected president. However, Donald Trump himself tried to ban TikTok in the summer of 2020, during his first term, through executive decrees which were unsuccessful.