ByeBye TikTok. Wait, Just Kidding.

     Last night at 11:32 pm I received the above image in a text from one of my children.
          OMG, thought I, did they really pull the trigger on TikTok? I checked my own TikTok app, and sure enough:

       Now, I can't say I was personally broken hearted at the news last April that the United States Congress passed with broad bipartisan support a law giving TikTok, a Chinese-controlled interest,  270 days to sell the app to an American buyer or be banned in the U.S.  Nor did I grieve last Friday when the Supreme Court stood up for the validity of that law.
         That being said, though I have a TikTok account, I'm not much of a fan. (But then, most of the stuff on TikTok isn't particularly Boomer-centric). I really only plugged into the app in hopes that it might be a platform upon which I might advertise my books. To that end I made a few videos which, alas, did not, as far as I could discern, boost my book sales very much, if at all.
          I then thought that I might take a whirl at being a TikTok storyteller.
        Here are a few of my TikTok efforts (most of which are re-runs from a blog from a couple of years ago, www.ailantha.com/blog/youre-never-too-old-to-tik-tokoo-old-to-tik-tok).         

       However, as it turned out, making even a minute-long video took time and effort, and, as most of these efforts received only a few hundred views - less than a nano-micron in the TikTokverse - after posting about half-a-dozen vignettes I ran out of TikTok-making mojo, and, for that matter, much further interest in TikTok.
​       In any case, it’s since come to light that China has been using the TikTok app as an espionage tool to harvest vast amounts of sensitive data and spread covert disinformation, which makes TikTok as it exists now a threat to American national security. Which is why Congress decreed that TikTok must be bought by an American company or be banned in our country.
        Yesterday TikTok's 270 days to find an American buyer were up, though if TikTok had been under contract to be sold to an American buyer by yesterday the deadline could have been extended for three more months. But it wasn't, which meant that the platforms that carry TikTok in the U.S. - Google, Apple, and Microsoft -  were required to shut off TikTok or face a fine of $5,000 for each of the 170 million American TikTok users. So last night they did shut TikTok down. Because 5,000 x 170 million is a lot of dollars.
           But then, there was that notable little quirk in the shut-down message,     

​...which suggested that TikTok's American carriers were in league with Donald Trump, who in fact promised to sign an executive order the very second he was sworn in as President tomorrow cancelling the law banning TikTok.
        And sure enough, today TikTok was back on, and note the tribute paid to Trump,

...indicating that its carriers were betting on Trump legalizing them on his own power, and also that he'd pardon them from paying the 5,000 x 170 million dollars they now owed for breaking the law by running TikTok after the deadline.
          All of which is interesting, because during his first Presidency Donald Trump led the battle cry for either 100% American acquisition of TikTok or the banning of the app. That was on his list of to-do's-that-never-got-done, along with an infrastructure initiative, health care reform, and an immigration solution.
          But then, lo, during his latest campaign, Donald Trump's supporters used TikTok to spread pro-Trump ads and messages, which resonated in particular with those millions of young people for whom TikTok is their main news source. Trump has said himself that TikTok may have won him the election. 
        And so to Donald Trump the TikTok-China connection and the national security threat it engenders no longer matter because the TikTok platform now benefits Donald Trump, which is why he intends to bring back TikTok by executive order.
​               Except here's the thing: A President may not issue an executive order to allow something that's against the law. And issuing an executive order to allow TikTok to operate while still under Chinese ownership will be breaking the law. 
       And so on his very first day, his very first minute in office Donald Trump intends to break the law.
​        But will anyone stop him? Will anyone even care?

References
https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/19/tech/tiktok-ban/index.html
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https://www.npr.org/2025/01/17/nx-s1-5258396/supreme-court-upholds-tiktok-ban

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/a-new-law-could-ban-tiktok-in-2025-heres-what-happens-next-111917426.html

https://factmyth.com/factoids/presidents-can-use-executive-orders-to-do-whatever-they-want/