\n<\/p>\n
Like Lazarus, TikTok has risen from the dead. A ban on the social media app<\/a> used by more than 170 million Americans has been averted, at least for now, the company announced in a midday tweet on Sunday<\/a>. The news came after President-elect Donald Trump<\/strong> announced he would use an executive order to extend the deadline for an American entity to take at least a majority stake in the application.<\/p>\n The app was the subject of bipartisan legislation<\/a> known as the Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, a federal move that would make it illegal for service providers to enable its use within the US unless Chinese parent company ByteDance sold the app to a government-approved buyer.<\/a><\/p>\n Advocates for the ban, including Congress and President Joe Biden<\/strong>, held that the video-sharing app threatened national security, while those in support of TikTok argued that banning it violated First Amendment rights to free speech. The ban, which Biden\u00a0signed into law in April<\/a>, followed a similar effort by then-president Trump, who had also attempted to ban the platform via executive action in 2020 before federal courts\u00a0blocked his efforts<\/a>.<\/p>\n As with Trump\u2019s previous ban attempt, ByteDance challenged the current legislation, citing First Amendment concerns. In a separate brief to the Supreme Court, users of the service acknowledged the ongoing geopolitical tension between China and the US, yet argued that allowing the law to take effect amounts to a \u201csuppression of Americans\u2019 speech\u201d and \u201cflies in the face of our history, tradition and precedent.\u201d<\/p>\n