TikTok restored in the US after President Trump forces U-turn

The app was banned on Saturday evening

The government had banned TikTok in the US after the social media app lost its appeal in the US Supreme Court on the 17 January

As reported by the BBC, the decision was made on the basis of fears for national security.

The app is owned by Chinese company ByteDance and went offline in the US on Saturday evening (18 January).

The app remained hopefully as the government declared that if ByteDance sell the platform by 19 January it can stay.

The social media giant previously had hoped a federal appeals court would agree with its argument that the law was unconstitutional because it represented a “staggering” impact on the free speech of its 170 million US users.

ByteDance have previously said that the law used to ban TikTok was “carefully crafted to deal only with control by a foreign adversary, and it was part of a broader effort to counter a well-substantiated national security threat posed by the PRC (People’s Republic of China).”

However, the swarming in off the 47th President of the United States of America has proved critical for the fate of the app.

This comes after outgoing President, Joe Biden, said he will not enforce the ban for the few remaining hours he is in office, leaving it up to Donald Trump to decide what to do when he enters the White House on noon, Eastern Time, on Monday (20 January).

Though Trump unsuccessfully attempted to ban the app in his first term as president in 2020, he said in the run-up to this election that he would not allow the app to be banned.

Only hours after the incoming president declared a delay on the implementation of the TikTok ban, the app returned to its users.

Millions opened up the platform to see a message thanking Donald Trump by name.

In a statement, the company thanked the incoming president for "providing the necessary clarity and assurance" and said it would work with Trump "on a long-term solution that keeps TikTok in the United States".

Those who use the app criticised the decision of banning TikTok at the time of the original banning decision.

Jasmine Enberg, principal analyst at eMarketer, told the BBC there would be ‘major upheaval’ if a TikTok appeal were to fail at the Supreme Court and a ban was enforced.

She said this would be ‘benefitting Meta, YouTube and Snap, while hurting content creators and small businesses that rely on the app to make a living.’