The Supreme Court decided on January 17 2025 that TikTok’s parent company ByteDance had to sell the app. This was because of a law that said they had to do it. TikTok had argued the law wasn’t fair but the court didn’t agree. The main reason for the court’s decision was worry about national security.
The law gave ByteDance a deadline of January 19 2025 to sell TikTok. If they didn’t the app would be banned nationwide. The government was worried that because TikTok was owned by a Chinese company the Chinese government could get user data. This led to a legal fight that ended with the Supreme Court ruling.
After the court’s decision TikTok stopped working in the U.S. on January 18 2025. People in the U.S. could not use the app anymore. This ended a long period of back and forth about the future of the app and starts a new discussion about foreign-owned apps and keeping our country safe.