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With no Supreme Court ruling on TikTok today, tensions are high. The wildly popular social media platform owned by China’s ByteDance could shut down in the U.S. on Jan. 19 – just four days from now — or sell itself to an entity Stateside if the Justices do not rule otherwise.
TikTok has 170+ million U.S. users and many, in protest, have been flocking to another Chinese social media app called called Xiaohongshu, or RedNote in English, which has been one of the most downloaded apps on the Apple app store this week.
Meanwhile, U.S. rivals led by Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts are set to reap advertising windfalls if TikTok is banned.
In April, President Joe Biden signed the bipartisan Protecting Americans from Foreign Controlled Applications Act, which would ban Bydance-owned TikTok, based on national security concerns. TikTok appealed on First Amendment grounds in December but lost. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Jan. 10 but has been mum since.
Under the act, a Foreign Controlled Application refers specifically to ByteDance or TikTok and any of their “subsidiaries or successors.”
No other apps are called out by name. The act refers to any social media company “that is controlled by a foreign adversary and has been determined by the president to present a significant threat to national security.” So the president would have to weight in on anything not related to ByteDance or TikTok. The law does not apply to apps mainly used to post “product reviews, business reviews or travel information and reviews.”
Xiaohongshu, which translates to Little Red Book in Chinese, is by all accounts a delightful mix of short form videos and e-commerce. The platform has about 300 million users globally, particularly popular with young women.
U.S. fans are also flocking to Lemon 8, a lifestyle app that leans into pictures but also has short-form video and is growing, but it is also owned by ByteDance.
TikTok’s major U.S. rivals include Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts, owned, respectively, by Meta and Alphabet.
Meta doesn’t break out its services but said Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp and Threads had 3.29 billion daily active users as of the third quarter of 2024. YouTube revealed in December that users watch over one billion hours of video per day. Many creators increasingly post on all three platforms, but TikTok skews the youngest. Snapchat had 443 million daily active users as of the third quarter.
It’s obviously to soon for them to be high fiving quite yet, they’ve been through this drill before.
In 2020, then President Donald Trump tried to force a ban or sale as well but let that effort fizzle although Microsoft had emerged as a bidder as well as a investor consortium including Oracle.
This time around, however, the incoming President has reversed course and opposes a ban. He has asked the Supreme Court to delay issuing its opinion until he takes office on Jan. 20 — the day after the deadline — and believes he could broker a political solution.
He is considering an executive order to block a ban, according to the Washington Post today, although it’s not clear that could overturn a law from Congress and a Supreme Court ruling – depending how that goes.
If the Court does uphold the sale or ban, given the tight deadline TikTok could be banned temporarily while or if a sale is in the works.
Nothing is “irrevocable,” said the government’s lawyer, U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, at oral arguments. She said ByteDance has pursued a game of chicken and that a ban might push it to take the sale mandate seriously. Selling a social media platform is not inherently impossible, she added, noting that Elon Musk acquired Twitter in six months. And ByteDance “has been on notice since 2020.”
TikTok recently denied reports that a sale to X owner Elon Musk has been considered.
Potential suitors include the Frank McCourt-founded Internet advocacy group Project Liberty, which submitted a formal bid with partners including Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary to buy TikTok without its current algorithm and “preserve the platform’s vibrant community, while also giving 170 million American TikTokers the ability to control, protect, and benefit from their data.”
That’s another issue. For a number of reasons, ByteDance probably will not sell TikTok with its algorithm, a prized asset that is also registered with the Chinese government, which would have to approve a sale. It’s hard to say what TikTok without its current algorithm would look like.
If TikTok is banned by U.S. app stores like Apple and Google, it would be impossible for new users to download. The app would keep working for users that have it already installed but ByteDance won’t be able issue updates, eventually rendering it just an unusable shell.
Winners If TikTok Is Banned
The loss of TikTok in the U.S. would cause a ripple effect across the media, marketing, and commerce landscape, said research firm eMarketer. Meta’s Instagram Reels and and YouTube Shorts stand to emerging as top TikTok alternatives for advertisers, as well as users and creators.
The firm estimates that TikTok generated $12.34 billion in U.S. ad revenues in 2024. Assuming TikTok could lose between 50% and 70% of ad revenues due to a ban, $6.17 billion to $8.64 billion of ad spending could need a new home.
Jasmine Enberg, VP & Principal Analyst said Snapchat and other social platforms have also been ‘TikTokifying’ their services and stand to benefit from a ban. “TikTok is the closest thing we have to an ‘everything app’ in the US, and advertisers would also spend their dollars on e-commerce, search and entertainment platforms.”
At 177.2 million users, YouTube Shorts’ U.S. audience is already larger than that of TikTok, which had 112.4 million U.S. users in 2024, per eMarketer’s estimates.
“But that’s largely due to its connection to long-form YouTube, and TikTok likely still leads in engagement. Still, YouTube’s continued efforts to make Shorts a stronger TikTok competitor, through updates like increased video lengths, will propel user and time spent growth in 2025—especially if a TikTok ban goes into effect.”
Amazon and Netflix could also be prime venues for advertisers, although that gets more complicated. “TikTok both competes and collaborates with entertainment, search and ecommerce providers,” noted Enberg. “Platforms like Netflix and Amazon would likely gain usage and ad spending, but they would also lose an important marketing vehicle,” she said.
“Small or independent businesses, creators and artists who rely on TikTok for discovery and income would be hit even harder.”
