The US Supreme court has set Sunday,19th, January,2025 as the day a ban on TikTok is to be enforced in the US. TikTok is a very popular short-video app with over 170 million users across the US and has over 5 billion downloads on app stores owned by China.

The ban is based on "fear" of a potential leak of information of the US TikTok users to the Chinese Communist government. The government of the United States believes ByteDance, a firm in charge of TikTok could be pressurised by the Chinese government to leak information of its users and use it for political purposes.

The US Supreme court ruling has given TikTok a deadline of Sunday 19th January to divest its US operations to an American firm or face a ban. This has seen rumors circulating concerning the potential buyers of TikTok in the US with many US billionaires including Elon musk being cited in the rumors. 

However, many TikTok users are worried the move will affect their means of survival with one user quoted saying a TikTok ban will mean to him waking up and going to work only to find that the office has vanished.Some TikTok users had amassed millions of followers which had seen them use this accounts as a way to earn a living through endorsement deals, advertising and other forms of employment on the site.

The fear of a potential leak of personal information has seen TikTok being banned in India and from the devicesof government employees in the US,UK, Canada,New Zealand, Norway and many others. Even the employees of the BBC and Denmark's public broadcaster were stopped from installing TikTok on their phones.

Is TikTok a security threat to the state? Well, this can be true if private data of targeted individuals is leaked via the site. Security personnel also warn of spying activities being carried out on social media platforms including TikTok, Facebook, Instagram and X. In Uganda specifically, Facebook was banned for security reasons and fake accounts are reportedly conducting politically motivated work on X formerly Twitter. 

So, let's wait for Sunday and see what the Trump administration will decide as the right course of action for the fate of TikTok as the latest information reaching out desk indicates Trump is giving room for further discussion with the Chinese government. 

We are also left to ponder whether it's okay to prioritise security over freedom of speech and expression by restricting the operations of Social media platforms. As at the moment, we are already well aware that TikTok is not as safe as it looks, it's the reason the BBC and other media giants are wary of allowing their employees install TikTok on their devices and teaches us to use these social media platforms with care especially when it comes to private data provided to these platforms.