Why is TikTok getting banned in the US – and could it happen in the UK?
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TikTok’s days are numbered after the Supreme Court backed a ban in the US. Lawmakers had told the social media platform’s China-based owner to sell up or move on when Congress passed a law to otherwise ban it last year. Instead, owner ByteDance appealed to the USA’s highest court, which has now ruled 9-0 in favour of the law.
![[NEW YORK, NEW YORK - JANUARY 17: Online Comic Zach Sage holds a faux funeral for TikTok, encouraging park-goers to say their goodbyes on January 17, 2025 in New York City. The Supreme Court unanimously decided to ban the app in the United States. (Photo by Alex Kent/Getty Images)]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/SEI_236332177-2ced.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=646)
Now TikTok’s 170million US users face losing the following they’ve amassed and the For You Pages they’ve carefully trained the algorithm to curate. For Brits, that means no more of your favourite American influencers, and no more flame wars over whose food is more beige, bland and bizarre.
![[epa11210244 Former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a 'Get Out The Vote Rally' campaign event at the Forum River Center in Rome, Georgia, USA, 09 March 2024. The Georgia presidential primary election is 12 March 2024. EPA/ERIK S. LESSER]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/SEI_195318202-2fac.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=646)
In a statement, the White House said: ‘TikTok should remain available to Americans, but simply under American ownership or other ownership that addresses the national security concerns identified by Congress in developing this law.’. TikTok has been accused of posing a national security risk because of data harvested from users.
![[(FILES) People gather for a press conference about their opposition to a TikTok ban on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on March 22, 2023. The US Supreme Court on January 17, 2025, upheld a law that will ban TikTok in the United States, potentially denying the video-sharing app to 170 million users in the United States starting on January 19. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski / AFP) (Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/SEI_236305222-9bd2.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=646)
‘Do we want the data from TikTok – children’s data, adults’ data – to be going, to be staying here in America or going to China?’, White House national security advisor Jake Sullivan said in March last year. China’s government insists it would never ask Chinese companies to ‘collect or provide data, information or intelligence’ held abroad.
But a 2017 National Intelligence Law requires ‘any organization’ to cooperate with and collect evidence with Chinese state intelligence. Although TikTok says it stores US user data in Singapore and the US, not China, its CEO Shou Zi Chew did admit that there is a Chinese official on the ByteDance board.
