By Rita Cook
WASHINGTON DC – President Donald Trump signed an executive order last week to extend the TikTok ban for a third time.
The order #13942 will be in effect for another 90 days and will expire on September 17, 2025.
TikTok’s parent company Byte dance, said to be affiliated with China even though the company is registered in the Cayman Islands and the owner is Singaporean, has been told it must sell the social media platform to a US owner. If not sold the threat is that TikTok will shut down through an act of Congress that passed in 2024.
That Act last year had many TikTok users scratching their heads and making a point to say that after the app went dark for several days, when it was restored, there were subtle changes that included a decrease in free speech on the platform.
During Trump’s third extension period last week, the Department of Justice was notified to “take no action to enforce the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act or impose any penalties against any entity for any noncompliance with the Act, including for distributing, maintaining, or updating (or enabling the distribution, maintenance, or updating) of any foreign adversary controlled application as defined in the Act.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters “He signed an order to extend the TikTok deadline another 90 days. The White House counsel strongly believes in the legal rationale of this executive order.”
Many Americans also believe Trump extended the order to save TikTok in order to keep his campaign promise to save the app in the U.S.
The TikTok ban bill passed 352-65 last year in the house making it about as bipartisan as a bill could be both since both sides of the aisle rarely are in agreement.
That raised even more red flags for TikTok users. Some expressed that they were convinced the ban was more due to the fact Americans were no longer forced to go to mainstream media’s propaganda machine for incorrect daily news using TikTok instead.
TikTok users find congressional hearings, lawmakers sharing necessary information (or misinformation) and up-to-minute events shown in the true light of facts and not mainstream media spins.
During political races over the last few years politicians themselves have also used TikTok to reach voters with their message.
And while during his first term he attempted to have the social media platform banned, but the policy failed in the court, for his second term he created a TikTok account.
Sen. Josh Hawley, a Republican from Missouri said to one news reporter he was fine with Trump attempting to see TikTok sold but questioned how long the bans continued extensions.
Local TikTok user, Terry Murphy said “It is unclear to me why our lawmakers want to keep insisting TikTok is Chinese owned, when it is not. For that fact, the mainstream news media also push that narrative, probably because more people believe what they see on platforms like this these days versus the news.”
PolitiFact reported regarding TikTok ownership that 60% of the parent company ByteDance is owned by global investors, 20% is owned co-founders and 20% by employees, including thousands of Americans.
It has also been widely reported the Chinese government took only a 1% ownership stake in TikTok called a “golden share.”
TikTok has said repeatedly that since 2022, its “U.S. user data has been stored only in the U.S. and controlled by a U.S.-led security team” and that the Chinese government is not able to access that data.
This information can be readily found by any person on TikTok’s website, including lawmakers who keep pushing the opposite narrative.
In this case, while those in Washington DC seem to believe if you say something long enough it will become the truth, apparently this time Trump is not up for buying in to that propaganda and the American people know better than to believe it.
Rita Cook is a world traveler and writer/editor who specializes in writing on travel, auto, crime and politics. A correspondent for Texas Metro News, she has published 11 books and has also produced low-budget films.
