“Sorry, TikTok isn’t available right now.”
This message plastered the home pages of American users of the short-form video platform TikTok on Saturday after the app was removed from the App and Google Play stores. Although the outage only lasted 14 hours, it marked the climax of a long-winded legal battle involving TikTok’s security and ties to the Chinese government.
How did social media’s wunderkind spark such heated debate among lawmakers, and why has it been the target of scrutiny since its creation? The Daily Illini has compiled a timeline of TikTok’s historic rise and the threats alongside this storied internet phenomenon.
TikTok’s beginnings
TikTok began as the platform Musical.ly in 2014. In the app, “Musers” could make videos lip-syncing or dancing to their favorite artists’ music or popular sound bites ranging from 15 seconds to one minute. By September 2017, the app had amassed millions of global users, with its strongest demographic being teenagers.
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ByteDance, a Chinese technology company, acquired the rights to Musical.ly in a nearly $1 billion acquisition deal in 2017. Since August 2018, all former Musical.ly users had their information merged with the new TikTok app that was a rebrand of its project of a similar format – Douyin.
2018: The rise
After its initial American launch in 2018, TikTok began its reign as the most downloaded app in America for the next four years. Its early success can partially be attributed to its algorithm that analyzes the time users spend on each video to show more content that keeps them glued to their “For You” page.
Also allowing users to lip-sync, dance or create comedy sketches, the platform grew in popularity until it reached about 12 million users in the United States by the end of 2018. However, this rise in domestic and international popularity didn’t come without scrutiny, marking the first time that ByteDance would be questioned about the app’s security.
2019: Questions arise in U.S. Senate
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ariz.) wrote a bipartisan letter to then-Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire in late October that called for an assessment of national security risks the app could pose.
Specifically, the senators called out the app’s data collection, which allegedly includes “user content and communications, IP address, location-related data, device identifiers, cookies, metadata and other sensitive personal information.” The algorithm and possible censorship also faced backlash.
The letter and subsequently-opened national investigation came the same year that Apple and Google banned TikTok in India following a ruling by the Madras High Court. The courts insinuated that the platform was circulating pornography among its base of 120 million Indian users.
2020: Trump gives ByteDance an ultimatum
President Donald Trump began taking a stronger stance on Chinese software throughout 2020, even telling reporters at the end of July that he planned to ban TikTok in the U.S. Trump cited concerns regarding security and fears surrounding the intentions of the Chinese Communist Party.
In August 2020, Trump signed an executive order that gave ByteDance 90 days to divest from the app’s U.S. operations. Before this order, the president ordered all American companies to prevent transactions with the technology giant.
At the same time, nearing its second birthday, TikTok had grown nearly 800%, boasting 100 million North American users. Half of those users were active daily on the platform by the end of the year.
2023: Suspicions continue
The federal government did not waver in its suspicions about TikTok’s safety throughout 2023. The White House even prohibited using the app on government-issued devices in February, citing fears that ByteDance would share sensitive information with the CCP.
This is the same year TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew was questioned for nearly six hours in a hearing hosted by the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce. Chew was adamant that the app was not a tool of the Chinese government, and the data of the app’s now 150 million users was protected by servers maintained by technology giant Oracle.
2024: Congress fights back
The TikTok “ban or sell” bill began picking up steam in Congress in March 2024. The bipartisan bill threatened to ban the platform unless ByteDance sold the app’s domestic operations to a U.S. company. The proposition passed in the Senate a month later.
After the bill was signed by former President Joe Biden that May, ByteDance sued the U.S. government, claiming that the law was unconstitutional.
In the summer, both Trump and former Vice President Kamala Harris joined TikTok to promote their campaigns in the 2024 presidential election. Trump began showing more outward support for the platform’s maintenance, asking the Supreme Court to put a hold on a ban until his administration could find a resolution to the issue.
2025: What’s next?
Trump’s pleas fell on deaf ears, as the Supreme Court upheld the TikTok ban in a unanimous decision, claiming that the risk to national security superseded concerns surrounding a violation of the First Amendment. The app was shut down on Saturday, a day before the scheduled date.
On Monday, his first day back in the White House, Trump signed an executive order delaying the federal ban on TikTok by 75 days. However, the president made it clear that “the U.S. should be entitled to get half of TikTok,” claiming the app could be worth upwards of a trillion dollars.
After service was restored on Sunday, TikTok flashed a message to users that thanked Trump for working with officials to keep the app up and running.
“Thanks for your patience and support,” the message read. “As a result of President Trump’s efforts, TikTok is back in the U.S.”
The move has since come under fire, with critics saying that a presidential pause of the ban goes beyond the allotted powers granted by the Constitution to the president.
Lawmakers are fighting for a long-term resolution. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) introduced the bipartisan Repeal the TikTok Ban Act on Monday. But, for now, TikTok’s 170 million American users will have to wait until April 5 to see if they can continue to scroll.
