The US' Potential TikTok Ban w/ Dr Olivier Jutel and Sam Ashton: 20 January, 2025

The US is currently deciding the fate of the short-form video content sharing app, TikTok, in its country.

The ban is currently in a grey area — over the weekend, US users were unable to use the platform, being greeted with a message about the legislation put in place, however, that ban has been lifted for the time being.

US President-elect, Donald Trump, who is set to take office later today as the nation’s 47th President, who had also previously supported banning TikTok’s operations in the country, has since shifted opinion, vowing to give the app a 90-day reprieve for more time to establish a deal between the nation and ByteDance: the Chinese-based company that operates TikTok.

The reasoning for the ban stems from what the US states are national security threats.

News and Editorial Director and Monday Wire Host, Joel, spoke to a Lecturer in the Communication Studies Department at the University of Otago, Dr Olivier Jutel, about the US’ ban of the app, and whether he believes the app has reasonable grounds to be banned in the nation.

As well as this, ahead of the potential ban, many non-US based content creators are questioning what implications they could see if the United States does deny TikTok’s operations to the millions of US users on the app.

Joel also spoke to Sam Ashton, otherwise known as ‘Smashton,’ who not only co-hosts 95bFM’s Top Ten, but is also an Aotearoa-based TikTok content creator with over 307k followers.

They spoke to him about whether he is concerned about what will happen if this move goes ahead, and what changes he might expect as a content creator based in New Zealand.