Is January 19, 2025, TikTok's last day of operation in the United States, as implied in a "BREAKING" post on Threads? No, that's not true: On the day the post appeared, there was no breaking news about enforcement of a federal law forcing the sale of TikTok to non-Chinese ownership. The bill signed into law by President Joe Biden gave TikTok owner Bytedance 270 days to sell its stake in the social media platform. The law also allows the president to extend the cutoff if there is evidence of progress toward a sale. In addition, TikTok's owners have sought court protection from the ban. Also, President-elect Donald Trump has said he will save TikTok from the ban.
The claim of TikTok's final day was made in a November 15, 2024, post on Threads (archived here). The caption said:
TikTok's last day is January 19, 2025. 😔😔😔
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Threads.com screenshot taken Tue Nov 25 01:41:38 2024 UTC)
The post on Threads offered no evidence there had been "BREAKING" news about a political battle that has been ongoing since the first Trump administration. A date-restricted search (archived here) of Google's index of billions of web pages showed no sudden developments during the month preceding the post.
There are multiple ways the post on Threads exaggerates the certainty of TikTok's final day of operation in the U.S.:
- By law, the deadline on hosting TikTok by U.S. internet services can be extended by the president if the president certifies to Congress that ByteDance has made progress toward the goal of removing Chinese ownership of TikTok. The ban was instituted in response to the concerns of national security agencies that China can use TikTok to spy on Americans and influence Americans.
- Biden signed the ban into law on April 24, 2024. TikTok then filed suit, asking the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to block the ban on constitutional grounds. Oral arguments were heard September 16, 2024. No judgement had been published as of November 25, 2024, but a ruling or a stay of enforcement pending further hearings could forestall the ban.
- In September 2024, more than a month before the Threads post declaring TikTok is shutting down, President-elect Donald Trump promised, on his Truth Social account, to save TikTok. Whether that means extending the deadline or seeking amendment to the law banning TikTok, he has not elaborated since this September 4, 2024, post (archived here) in which he wrote: "FOR ALL OF THOSE THAT WANT TO SAVE TIK TOK IN AMERICA, VOTE TRUMP!"
(Source: Truth Social screenshot taken Tue Nov 25 03:04:00 2024 UTC)
The post on Threads offered no evidence for its declaration that the TikTok ban will be enforced without extensions, without court action and without presidential intervention.
(Editors' Note: TikTok is a client of Lead Stories. On our About page, you will find the following information: "Since April 2020 we also provide fact checking related advice and services to ByteDance, the company running TikTok.)
