In 2020, President Donald Trump proposed a ban of the app TikTok. He viewed it as a national security threat because it is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese technology company. In August of 2020, he signed an executive order instructing ByteDance to divest from the app. However, that order was blocked in September 2020, and reversed by the Biden administration in 2021. This also banned transactions with eight other Chinese apps.
In 2024, The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act was passed by Congress, ordering ByteDance to divest due to alleged security concerns. It was signed into law by President Joe Biden on April 24th, 2024. Following a lawsuit from TikTok, the law was upheld by the Supreme Court banning TikTok unless sold by ByteDance.
On January 18th, 2025, the day before the bill’s deadline, TikTok was shut down. On the following day, the first of his term, President Trump gave the ban a 75-day extension.
Later on January 19th, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson told NBC that he believes the Supreme Court will enforce the law and that TikTok will be returned to the app store once Trump changes TikTok’s ownership from ByteDance to a U.S. company.
Many TikTok users began to find different apps to use during the ban, including a Chinese app called RedNote, in protest of the ban. American and Chinese users began to use the hashtag “#tiktokrefugee”, which went viral on RedNote. RedNote quickly became the most downloaded free app on the app store and gained millions of American users by January 16th.
