As The Clock Ticks On TikTok, Is Music Ready For Its Next Act?

So, here’s the breakdown–we have at least another year of TikTok.

Well folks, I fear the clock is ticking on TikTok. A TikTok ban has been lingering in the halls of congress since last year, but now, it is quite possibly imminent. The video sharing app was once called musical.ly, lending small screen time to viral dance routines. In the decade since its inception in 2014, the app has evolved into so much more. TikTok, owned by Chinese tech company ByteDance, is now home to approximately 150 million American users, with millions more worldwide.

Now, a nationwide TikTok ban is on the table. Biden recently signed a foreign aid package that could lead to the ban within the next year, as legislators are pushing ByteDance to either sell TikTok to an American company or risk losing its millions of American users. As of today, ByteDance confirmed its intentions to fight the ultimatum. This comes after allegations that the company is selling American data to the Chinese government, a claim that the company CEO has long refuted. A full ban could still be challenged, as it poses a potential infringement of the first amendment, which guarantees free speech in the U.S.

In 2022, TikTok was banned from several public universities and government buildings due to alleged safety concerns. Conservative politicians have long played into suspicion that the app was allowing the Chinese government to mine personal data from American users’ accounts, despite TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew’s own Singaporean background. Montana became the first state to pass a bill banning TikTok from the entire state in 2023, but it was quickly overturned when a group of creators organized to fight it.