TikTok is a short-form video app that has been installed over 100 million times in the states, about two billion times globally. The app has approximately 50 million daily active users in the U.S. where subscribers create 15 second to 60 second videos with subjects related to lip syncs, dances, funny pranks and more. Teens installed the app in large numbers during the pandemic to help them kill time.
China will also have to approve any divestiture of TikTok in the U.S. by ByteDance. State owned media has complained about Trump’s order forcing the divestiture of ByteDance’s U.S. operations with a foreign ministry spokesman calling it bullying. TikTok has challenged the possible ban by filing multiple times in U.S. courts and several judges have temporarily blocked the app from getting banned in the U.S. and removed from the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store. All of the legal action forcing the removal of TikTok in the states could simply disappear next month when Joe Biden is sworn in as president.
