Photo:VCG

TheMKS sports Biden administration is considering ways to keep TikTok available in the US if a ban that's scheduled to go into effect on Sunday proceeds, NBC News reported, citing three people familiar with the discussions.

"Americans shouldn't expect to see TikTok suddenly banned on Sunday," an administration official said, adding that officials are "exploring options" for how to implement the law so TikTok does not go dark Sunday, NBC News reported.  

If the administration moves forward with any such plan, it would mean the popular app's going down would not define his last full day in office, and it would defer the issue to Donald Trump, who will be inaugurated Monday, according to the report.

Meanwhile, President-elect Donald Trump is considering an executive order once in office that would suspend enforcement of the TikTok ban-or-sale law for 60 to 90 days, buying the administration time to negotiate a sale or alternative solution, the Washington Post reported.

According to the NBC News report, the moves represent parallel efforts by the rival presidents to execute an end-run around Congress and the Supreme Court, which is teed up to rule on the ban at any time. 

Biden's and Trump's positions are reversals from their onetime support for banning TikTok, the report said. 

"The proposed ban on TikTok does not align with the US Constitution's amendments, as citizens have the freedom to communicate with each other through social media. Therefore, if the ban takes place, it may constitute a violation of constitutional rights," He Weiwen, a senior fellow at the Center for China and Globalization, told the Global Times on Thursday, noting that the US' reported moves to consider ways to keep TikTok available highlight the fact that the foreseeable impacts of banning the popular app may be hard to swallow.

TikTok is immensely popular among ordinary Americans, with a strong user base, said He.

According to a Reuters report, TikTok is currently used by about 170 million Americans, roughly half of the country's population, and is overwhelmingly popular among young people and the advertisers looking to reach them.

"Banning this app directly impacts the interests of so many American people, further proving that the Biden administration's initial ban was a mistake," He said.

The US Supreme Court held a two-hour discussion on January 10 regarding the future of TikTok in the US, according to an audio livestream on the court's website. On December 6, 2024, a US federal appeals court upheld a law requiring ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, to divest the app in the US by January 19, 2025 or face a ban, Reuters reported.

China's Foreign Ministry said in last March that the proposed TikTok ban puts the US on the opposite side of the principle of fair competition and international economic and trade rules. "If so-called 'national security' reasons can be used to arbitrarily suppress other countries' outstanding companies, then there is no fairness or justice left. When one sees something good from others, the goal should not be to seize it for oneself — this is entirely a robber's logic," the ministry said. It stressed that the way the US handles the TikTok issue will make the world see more clearly whether the so-called "rules" and "order" of the US are truly beneficial to the world or only serve the interests of the US itself.