TikTok US ban 19th Jan 2025 after appeal lost

TikTok have lost an appeal in the US federal court where they looked to have an outright TikTok US ban overturned. This means, unless something changes in the meantime, that TikTok will be banned for all Americans (and visitors to the US!) from the 19th of January 2025.

Bytedance, TikTok’s owners say that they’ll take the TikTok US ban appeal to the US Supreme Court, but there’s no certainty that they will want to even hear the case, let alone rule in TikTok’s favour. TikTok issued the following statement:

The Supreme Court has an established historical record of protecting Americans’ right to free speech, and we expect they will do just that on this important constitutional issue. Unfortunately, the TikTok ban was conceived and pushed through based upon inaccurate, flawed and hypothetical information, resulting in outright censorship of the American people. The TikTok ban, unless stopped, will silence the voices of over 170 million Americans here in the US and around the world on January 19th, 2025.

– TikTok

It’s worth noting that incoming President Donald Trump will be inaugurated just one day after the TikTok US ban, on the 20th of January, so a day too late to stop the ban but a potential lifeline, although not all Trump appointees are against the ban and Congress would still need to vote through any changes to the law.

What’s interesting is that legally Bytedance, TikTok’s owners, won’t be the ones responsible for enforcing the ban. It’s the app stores (mainly Apple and Google) who will have to remove the app from their stores. This is a tricky one as it would be relatively easy to make it available to prevent new downloads, but what happens if I visit the US having previously downloaded TikTok prior to the ban on my UK mobile device? How can the app be made inoperable for the duration of my stay in the States? It’s the app stores that would be on the hook for fines in the millions of dollars for not upholding the ban.

Naturally, TikTok competitors have been ramping up activities ready to welcome US TikTok creators and retailers but the reality is that people are going to lose their incomes. Despite a start of years (decades!) on TikTok, the likes of Instagram don’t generate the sales activity of TikTok – for instance in June this year, Canvas Beauty, set up by Stormi Steele, achieved a then record breaking TikTok Live selling $1 million in sales in just six hours. We’re not going to see that on Instagram any time soon.

Equally, creators are often using the TikTok affiliate network to promote products, gaining a commission on each sales. For them it would be nigh on impossible to generate the same income on other platforms.

We’ll be watching developments closely, especially for UK businesses who have seen massive success on TikTok in the UK and are in the process of setting up (or are already operating) on TikTok in the US.

If TikTok is banned on the 19th of January it will be a sad day for the cutting face of ecommerce retailing. Regardless of your thoughts on potential links to the Chinese state, the harsh reality of losing an app that you love for it’s entertainment value is going to hurt, but nowhere near as much as the even harsher reality of losing your income.