This Sunday, millions of people may be extremely disappointed when they open their favorite app. TikTok, which has seen a ridiculous amount of popularity, and essentially constructed its own creator ecosystem, faces a ban from the United States government if it doesn't sell itself to a U.S.-based firm before January 19. The app first came to U.S. shores in 2016 and really started gaining footing in 2018. It has since lived in the hearts and minds of millions of people, including my wife and daughter; I'm more of an Instagram Reels kind of guy myself.
By the way, this extremely popular app is the brainchild of Chinese firm ByteDance, and the U.S. Government really doesn't like the app for this reason. The primary reason for the ban, according to U.S. officials, is that ByteDance has access to tons of U.S. users' data. Being a Chinese-based company, that means that the Chinese government also has access to that data. That just will not do, and there are very good reasons for this.