President Trump will reverse the TikTok ban within hours of being sworn in as President of the United States, as he promises to find a solution for the 170 million TikTok users in the United States (US). The US ban officially came into force at midnight on 19 January 2025.
The US, and President Trump’s ‘new best friend’ Elon Musk, know a lot about the power of social media, but can we really expect TikTok to sell to a US company? The US played a game of chicken with TikTok and it didn’t flinch – shutting its US site down, rather than handing over control. With the potential of a foreign adversary having access to its population, and the mass market data TikTok controls, the US would prefer to trust one of its own with such power.
Social media is a powerful tool for influencing its users, and it is clear that the US would prefer to keep control of its influencers rather than allow the Chinese to wield such influence. The TikTok ban has highlighted a much bigger issue, which is the power of social media and mass market data sets. Can we trust social media platforms with such data, irrespective of where they are based? The need for proper regulation and governance is clear and this must be addressed. Even in the land of the free, who is guarding the gatekeepers?