Tiktok banned: Will TikTok be banned in the UK? Government officials reveal views as US ban is about to start

The social media giant lost a last-ditch legal bid this week to have a US ban declared as unconstitutional on free-speech grounds, and it is due to come into effect on Sunday.

Last April, US President Joe Biden signed a law which gave TikTok a deadline of January 19 to separate its US business from parent firm ByteDance, a China-based company whose control of TikTok is seen as a national security threat by the US government. This week, the US Supreme Court rejected TikTok’s appeal and unanimously upheld the law banning the app.

A UK government spokesperson said: “This is a matter for the US government. There are no plans to introduce a TikTok ban in the UK. We engage with all major social media companies to understand their plans for ensuring the security of UK data and to ensure they meet the high data protection and cyber security standards we expect.”

While President Biden’s administration has signalled that it would not enforce the law, TikTok has said it will have to “go dark” unless there are assurances that the US government will not enforce a shut down.

TikTok released a statement late on Friday saying “statements issued today by both the Biden White House and the Department of Justice have failed to provide the necessary clarity and assurance to the service providers that are integral to maintaining TikTok’s availability to over 170 million Americans”.

“Unless the Biden Administration immediately provides a definitive statement to satisfy the most critical service providers assuring non-enforcement, unfortunately TikTok will be forced to go dark on January 19,” the statement said.

Despite there being no plans for a ban, TikTokers in the UK have expressed concerns about what the move in the US could mean for their viewership and income.

Tom Pratt, 23, a TikToker from London who interacts with users online – mainly Americans – by asking them geography trivia, fears the app will struggle to continue if users from the US are banned from using the platform.

“The US as a country is so powerful and big and I don’t think TikTok can keep going if there’s no American users on the app,” said Mr Pratt, who has more than 220,000 followers on TikTok. I think it will sadly change over to another app, which I hate, because I absolutely love TikTok.”