TikTok ban: Why the app could really disappear soon

People have been talking about banning TikTok almost as long as it existed. The app was launched under that name in 2017 – and by 2019, it was already banned in much of the world.

It means that discussions of a TikTok ban in the US and elsewhere can sometimes have a feeling of being stuck in time. Politicians make a variety of complaints – which can vary from national security concerns to worries about children’s development – and threaten to ban the app in response.

It has happened enough that much of the world might have become bored of those threats, especially given they rarely seem to come to anything. But just as we are becoming tired of talking about a TikTok ban, it might finally happen.

This week, the US Senate approved legislation that will force the app to be sold or banned, and Joe Biden has signed it into law. The threat of a ban is looming.

The ban has already happened elsewhere. Billions of people live in countries where TikTok is unavailable in one form or another.

What’s more, those bans have happened with relatively simplicity. In India, which was a leader in banning the app, the app was taken down from the Google and Apple app stores in the country, and it was no longer available.

Instagram Reels rushed in to fill the gap. The then brand new app – which borrows much of the same formats from TikTok, including its musical soundtracks and its easily scrollable feed – quickly took in users that could no longer use the original app.

YouTube Shorts did much the same, and saw a similar popularity. Neither of the apps offered any great innovations, and simply stood out for offering the same sort of endlessly satisfying, bite-sized, easily discovered content that TikTok had once done.

Those apps are already