By now you are all well aware of the Tik Tok ban that occurred for 16 hours January 19 (bone chilling, I know).

For those 16 dark hours in the cold and snowy conditions of Western Pennsylvania when we weren’t able to access the app, most of the country was vigorously swirling with confusion.

So what is going to happen to TikTok? What could save TikTok from being banned?

I’m here to give you the facts of the matter.

As you might know, under federal legislation former President Joe Biden signed into law last year, ByteDance, the Chinese parent company of TikTok, was to sell the platform by January 19 to an American company or be denied access to the American market.

We now know that that did not come to be.

But why does ByteDance have to sell the app in the first place? Why do politicians not want the app being used?

Allow me to enlighten you. Lucky for us, America is a democratic nation. China is a communist nation. As I’m sure a teacher from our history department has taught you, America and communism mix like oil and water.

In the eyes of the US, communism is a threat to free elections, individual freedoms, and free trade (basically everything our nation is built on . . .)

So TikTok being partly owned by a Chinese company is a big uh oh and, to quote our president, “Poses a threat to our national security.”

The Chinese government, while not TikTok’s owner, can demand access to TikTok’s data as per the conditions of business ownership in China. And TikTok has a lot of your information from financial information, passwords, images of you, your location, and so on.

So why are we still able to access the dancing platform? Well, per the 20th Amendment, Inauguration Day happens to fall a day after the ban started (Jan 20).

So, when 47th President Donald J. Trump became America’s right-hand-man again, he was able to pass an executive order delaying the TikTok ban by 75 days.

But did you know the savior of our cherished video app once pushed for its demise?

During Trump's first presidential term in 2020, he issued an executive order asking to ban TikTok due to the same national security concerns.

Fortunately for content creators everywhere, the order didn’t take effect because it was blocked in court.

But back to my explanation . . .

Essentially, for 75 days, the Apple and Google app stores will not be penalized for allowing US citizens to download the app.

The order gives ByteDance more time to sell TikTok, but if the company does not sell in compliance with the order the app will go dark once more . . .

And unfortunately for us, ByteDance has stated several times that they do not want to sell off the app.

But don’t worry ECHO readers. There’s still some time for the company to change their minds!

And I’ll be here reporting if there are more big updates 💪