Potential TikTok reprieve positive development

On Friday, US president-elect Donald Trump asked the US Supreme Court to pause the potential TikTok ban from going into effect, until his administration takes office and can pursue a "political resolution" to the issue.

There are voices claiming that Trump is rendering assistance to TikTok because it helped him harvest support from young voters during his run for the presidency. But US President Joe Biden registered a TikTok account in February, about four months earlier than Trump, while Vice-President Kamala Harris registered her account before she became the presidential nominee. Actually, Trump actively pushed for a TikTok ban in his last term from 2016 to 2020.

TikTok is just a platform, and what really matters is that TikTok has already become part of the daily life and an essential channel of expression for more than 170 million US users and any attempt to ban it risks violating their constitutional freedom of speech.