New TikTok app for Americans only? Here's how it might operate separately from the global app
American TikTok users should prepare for a change - TikTok might be launching a US-only app, which is expected to operate on a separate algorithm and data system.
The change is likely to happen after US President Donald Trump stated last week that a group of "very wealthy" people are ready to buy TikTok's US operations, according to CNN Business.
Why now?
Following the then-President Joe Biden signing the sale-or-ban law last year over national security concerns, it forced TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, to either sell its US operations or face a ban by early 2026.
Donald Trump has stated before that he wants to prevent the ban and save the app, and it appears that the president is doing that by delaying the law and promoting a deal to hand control of the app to American owners.
As reported by Reuters, the new US-only app is designed to function independently, similar to Douyin, a version of TikTok available only in China.
TikTok users from outside the US will not be able to download the American version of the app from their app store.
With 170 million users in the US, the change could seriously alter how Americans see global content and how creators in other countries earn their income.
New App
The Reuters report explains that, over the past months, TikTok has been working to build a new, US version of TikTok by transferring and duplicating the application's codebase, which includes AI models, algorithms, features, and user data from the global platform.
While TikTok plans to migrate current content into the new US app, it remains unclear how it will integrate new content from the global platform.
The new app will train its recommendation algorithms exclusively on data from US users, distancing itself from TikTok's global systems. As a result, American users will primarily see content created within the United States.
The initiative, known internally as "M2", is expected to launch in September and could represent the most significant technical break between TikTok's US operations and its international business.
CNN Business has reported that the existing TikTok app will be removed from US app stores on the same day the new US app launches. However, Americansmay be able to use the global TikTok app until March of next year.
The new app raises questions like how the US content creators will be able to work on international collaborations and global campaigns, or how the app's users will access content from other countries.
Nonetheless, the TikTok experience in the US may get a major reboot very soon.