TikTok decision: Supreme Court votes to uphold app's ban in US. Can anyone save it?
The U.S. Supreme Court voted Friday to uphold the law that would ban TikTok in the country on Sunday, siding with the government's national security concerns over the First Amendment rights of the company and its 170 million TikTok users.
Here's what we know.
Did the TikTok ban get extended? Supreme Court decision to keep TikTok ban in place
In a Friday ruling, Supreme Court justices dismissed a challenge arguing the ban on the popular social media video app is a violation of free speech. With the law in place, TikTok will be banned in the U.S. on Sunday — if the app's owner, Beijing-based ByteDance, doesn't sell it by Jan. 19, 2025.
Why are they banning TikTok? What to know about the SCOTUS ruling
The U.S. Department of Justice says TikTok has access to American data and is sharing it with the Chinese government, and could manipulate the content on the app to shape American opinions. Biden signed legislation requiring ByteDance to sell TikTok's U.S. assets by Jan. 19, 2025.
TikTok attempted to block the ban, saying the government has yet to prove that such a security risk has ever happened and that a ban would violate First Amendment rights and threaten the voices of millions of Americans. The lower court's decision to uphold the law was unanimous from judges appointed by both Democrat and Republican presidents, and the ruling has just been reinforced by the Supreme Court.
How much does TikTok cost? See app's net worth
Before TikTok could be purchased, ByteDance would need to agree to sell the app. Any potential buyers would be faced with spending between $40 and $50 billion just for TikTok's U.S. operations, according to an estimate by CFRA Research Senior Vice President Angelo Zino. CNBC reports, "Zino based his valuation on estimates of TikTok’s U.S. user base and revenue in comparison to rival apps."
Did MrBeast buy Tiktok?
No, MrBeast has not purchased TikTok.
YouTube creator James "Jimmy" Donaldson, popularly known as MrBeast, posted to X on Monday: "Okay fine, I'll buy TikTok so it doesn't get banned." What may have been an offhand, humorous comment had garnered more than 32 million views as of Wednesday.
In response, Donaldson shared another post on Tuesday: "Unironically, I’ve had so many billionaires reach out to me since I tweeted this. Let’s see if we can pull this off."
It is unclear if Donaldson's intentions are serious. The YouTuber hadn't shared further information as of Thursday morning. His team did not immediately respond for comment when contacted by Paste BN on Wednesday.
Chinese law prevents companies from selling their software algorithm, like the one at the forefront of TikTok’s technology, and the government must approve a sale that includes TikTok’s software.
Is Elon Musk buying TikTok?
If Texas billionaire Elon Musk bought the app, his social media platform X would take over TikTok, with the two businesses running together, people close to the situation told Bloomberg.
By merging the two, Musk would garner access to large amounts of data from TikTok, which could potentially feed into his separate artificial intelligence company, xAI.
Musk — the world’s wealthiest person — purchased Twitter in 2022 for $44 billion and is still paying off sizable loans. Musk later rebranded Twitter into X, and the sale has since caused large controversy as Musk reinstated the accounts of several previously banned people, including President-elect Donald Trump.
Deliberations within the Chinese government are still preliminary, Bloomberg reported, and it is unclear if Musk and ByteDance have ever been in conversations about a potential sale.
Shortly before Biden signed a bipartisan bill giving ByteDance a Jan. 19 deadline to divest its U.S. assets — including the sale of TikTok — or face a ban, Elon Musk posted on X that he supported TikTok remaining available in the U.S., citing free speech.
Musk’s many businesses, including Tesla, have footholds in both the U.S. and China. Tesla’s Shanghai factory, built in 2019, has helped to expand the company’s market share in China and built goodwill among Chinese government officials.
Could President-elect Donald Trump save TikTok?
Maybe?
Minutes before the court released its decision, Trump said on social media he’d just spoken with Chinese President Xi Jinping about TikTok and other issues.
“It is my expectation that we will solve many problems together, and starting immediately,” Trump posted.
At the end of last year, he asked the Supreme Court to pause any bans on the app so that his administration, which will begin the day after the deadline when he formally takes office on Inauguration Day, to “pursue a negotiated resolution.”
At a December press conference, Trump — who currently has nearly 15 million followers on the app — told reporters, "TikTok has a 'warm spot in my heart' and credited the app for growing his relationship with young voters. He also posted his support for the app on Truth Social, writing, "Why would I want to ban TikTok?"
But he was against it before he was for it.
Trump issued the first TikTok ban by executive order in 2020. His ban, which also gave ByteDance a deadline to sell to a U.S. company, coincidentally came a month after TikTokkers gleefully trolled him by organizing a campaign through the app to sign up for seats at his rallies, causing Trump to brag about the number of RSVPs received, and then not showing up.
While ByteDance was in negotiations to sell to Microsoft and Oracle, the company filed a request for a preliminary injunction to prevent the app from being banned and got it, so Trump's ban never went into effect.
Biden later revoked the order and ordered the Secretary of Commerce to investigate the app. In 2022, Biden signed a bill prohibiting the app on government devices.
How to request a copy of your TikTok account
In TikTok, go to your profile page and tap the 3-line menu at the top right.
- Go to your Profile page (tap Profile at the bottom)
- Tap the Menu bottom, three lines stacked vertically
- Tap Settings and privacy
- Tap Account
- Tap Download your data
- Select your data to download (all info or just select data) and the file format (easy-to-read text or JSON, which allows other services to import your file)
- Tap Request data
You'll be notified in the app when the file is ready. It may take a few days to prepare the file, depending on how many videos you've uploaded and how many other people are doing the same thing.
To download your TikTok data:
- Go to your Profile page (tap Profile at the bottom)
- Tap the Menu bottom, three lines stacked vertically
- Tap Settings and privacy
- Tap Account
- Tap Download your data
- Tap Download data to see if your request is ready and tap Download if it is.
Your file will be available for up to four days. However, you will not get videos in the download, you'll get links to them on TikTok. To get those...
How to download videos from TikTok
TikTok does not have a built-in option to bulk-download all your videos. To save a few videos you uploaded:
- In the app
- Go to your Profile page, select a clip. Then either:
- Tap on the three-dot menu
- Tap on Save video to download it to your device,
- or
- Tap the arrow-shaped Share button ion the lower right side of the screen
- Tap the option that says Save Video
- After it is processed, you'll get options to email it to yourself or upload it to a cloud service such as Google Drive. Swipe to the end and tap More to get the option to download the movie.
- Go to your Profile page, select a clip. Then either:
- On the website
- Go to your Profile page, select a clip
- Right-click on the video, click on Download video
If it's a photo post, go to the post, tap the Share button, and tap Save Photo. If there are more than one, you can "Select all" or choose the ones you want.
Note that videos downloaded from TikTok will have a faint TikTok logo in the corner.
There are third-party options to help save your videos, such as the Chrome extensions MyFaveTT or TikTok Video Keeper (search TikTok Downloader for a wide variety of them). However, some browser extensions may have security risks or violate TikTok's terms of service.
Can I upload my TikTok videos to YouTube or Instagram Reels?
If you have copies of your videos before they were uploaded, yes. You can upload any short videos to other sites, provided they do not include copyrighted material, including music or clips from other people's videos. A host of TikTokkers even provide tips and instructions on getting your TikTok videos into YouTube Shorts.
In 2021, Instagram warned creators that videos "visibly recycled from other apps (i.e., contains logos or watermarks)" would not be recommended as much to people who do not already follow you there. Instagram's algorithm already makes it hard to be seen, there's no reason to give them a reason to bury you.
If you can, upload your original videos without TikTok logos or music and add music from Instagram Reels instead.
— Paste BN contributed to this report.