The United States Supreme Court has ruled that TikTok should be banned in the US by Sunday if it is not sold by ByteDance, its Chinese parent company.
Despite this ruling, President Joe Biden has said he would not enforce the ban for the remaining hours he is in office, allowing President Donald Trump to decide what to do when his tenure begins on Monday.
In a statement released after the ruling, the White House noted that TikTok should remain available to Americans.
“TikTok should remain available to Americans, but simply under American ownership or other ownership that addresses the national security concerns identified by Congress in developing this law,” the White House said.
Read also: China may sell TikTok to Elon Musk — Report
Talks of TikTok’s ban began over concerns that ByteDance, its parent company, could give data on American citizens to the Chinese government. However, TikTok’s owners maintained that they have no plans to do so.
In a bid to get back at the government, Americans have begun to download RedNote or Xiaohongshu (literally translated as Little Red Book), a popular Chinese social media app that does not have the usual internet firewall that separates China from the rest of the world.
“The reason that our government is telling us that they are banning TikTok is because they’re insisting that it’s owned by you guys, the Chinese people, government, whatever,” said one new RedNote user, Definitelynotchippy.
She added, “A lot of us are smarter than that though so we decided to piss off our government and download an actual Chinese app. We call that trolling, so in short, we’re here to spite our government and to learn about China and hang out with you guys.”
A U.S. official notes, however, that RedNote, just like TikTok, could face an ultimatum to divest or be banned.
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