In his latest interview to Fox News, Donald Trump announced that there is a possible buyer for the famous audiovisual content platform TikTok. However, the President clarified that he will not reveal the name until two weeks from now, provided that China authorizes the transaction. One of the last measures of the Biden Administration prohibited the use of TikTok in the United States if its owner did not sell the application before January 19. After Trump’s arrival, that date was pushed back and is now pending that ByteDance, the company that owns TikTok, disassociates itself from North America. The Republican President has stated that he is confident that Chinese President Xi Jinping will give the green light to this transaction.
TikTok
It was launched in 2016 by the Chinese company ByteDance. Known as Douyin in China, TikTok has become one of the largest and most powerful audiovisual platforms in the market. It is a platform where users can publish 10-minute videos, accompanied by effects, music or sounds. There is also the possibility of streaming, as many profiles gain visibility and even money through their “Lives”. Its main intention is to create interaction between users, and to favor the creation of viral contents.
United Stated vs China
Tensions between the United States and China are as old as the world itself. Struggles to dominate markets, technological advances, to have control over knowledge and expeditions to outer space, to lead the best advances in medicine… In short, a struggle for power. The relationship between the two countries has fluctuated depending on who was the representative of the White House, but within that tension, it has remained stable. However, it was in 2024, during the last term of Democratic President Biden, when the alarm bells rang again.
United Stated vs TikTok
The use of social networks has become practically an addiction for all its users. It affects not only young people, but anyone who has a profile on one of the many existing platforms. The purpose of social networks is to encourage interaction between human beings, and bring us closer to those who are further away, opening borders and allowing us to reach any part of the world. However, this is not the use they are being put to. Human beings have become addicted to the dopamine that we generate with the infinite consumption that these social networks give us.
Perhaps we have lost a little bit the north in terms of the level of exposure in networks, as well as the time we invest in them. In addition, we accept absolutely all privacy and data protection policies without reading them, which can put our personal information at risk. It was this very reason that Joe Biden felt needed to be addressed in the case of the TikTok platform. Homeland Security warned that this could pose a real threat in the event that the application collected data from US users and could be accessed by the Chinese government.
What measures were taken?
In order to put an end to this threat, former President Biden passed a law obliging the Chinese company ByteDance, owner of TikTok, to sell the application to a U.S. company by January 19, 2025. Failure to do so would result in a ban on the use of this platform in the United States. After appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court on the grounds that this law violated users’ freedom of expression, ByteDance received another denial, with the only option being to sell its platform. After the arrival of the now President Trump on January 20, 2025, the deadline was postponed.
The date was again postponed from April 4 to July. It is now that President Trump has declared to Fox News media that there is already a buyer for the platform and that he will be able to reveal the name in a few weeks. It is not known if because he wants to be interesting, because there is no such buyer, or because he does not have the consent of China, but he has not given more information. He ended by stating “We will probably need China’s approval, but I think the President (Xi Jingping) will give his permission”.