Is time up for TikTok in the US?
The Inquiry
BBC
4.6 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 9 September 2025
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In January, the popular Chinese social media app TikTok went offline for its 170 million Americans. The outage marked a turning point in a long-running dispute over data privacy and national security, with US lawmakers concerned about the app’s Chinese ownership. A law passed by Congress required ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, to sell its US operations or face a ban. Although ByteDance did not meet the deadline, the newly inaugurated President Trump postponed enforcement, introducing a timeline for a potential sale. That deadline has since been extended multiple times, with the current cutoff now set for 17 September. But with complex negotiations still underway and Beijing reluctant to approve any deal, Trump has signalled he may grant yet another extension leaving the app’s fate in the US uncertain. This week on The Inquiry, we’re asking: Is it time up for TikTok in the US?
Contributors: Alan Rozenshtein, Associate Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota Dr Joanne Gray, Senior Lecturer in Digital Cultures in the Discipline of Media and Communications at the University of Sydney Anupam Chander, Professor of Law and Technology at Georgetown University Isabella Wilkinson, Research Fellow in the Digital Society Initiative at Chatham House
Presenter: David Baker Producer: Matt Toulson Researcher: Maeve Schaffer Editor: Louise Clarke Technical Producer: James Bradshaw Production Management Assistant: Liam Morrey
(Photo: TikTok message announcing a ban. Credit: NurPhoto/Getty Images)
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Inquiry from the BBC World Service with me, David Baker. Each week one question, four expert witnesses and an answer. |
| 0:12.8 | It's the 19th of January 2025, the day before Donald Trump's second inauguration, and the popular video sharing app, TikTok, |
| 0:22.6 | has just gone dark for its 170 million U.S. users. |
| 0:26.9 | Millions of Americans are waking up this morning to a TikTok app where you can't scroll or post |
| 0:31.3 | and said all you see is a message that it's unavailable. |
| 0:34.3 | This is because of a political standoff that began more than nine months before. In April |
| 0:40.5 | 2024, the US Congress passed a law giving bite dance TikTok's Chinese owner a choice, sell its |
| 0:49.9 | US operations to an American buyer or face a ban. The law passed with rare bipartisan support |
| 0:57.5 | over concerns about Chinese influence and data security. Bight Darts failed to meet the US |
| 1:05.3 | demands and the app went offline. But one day later it was back up and running. On his first day in office, |
| 1:13.7 | Donald Trump had signed an executive order, delaying enforcement for 75 days. And since then, |
| 1:20.5 | he's extended that deadline twice more, with the latest extension due to end on September the 17th. |
| 1:27.3 | And now he's talking about delaying things even further. |
| 1:31.2 | In the meantime, until the complexity of things work out, |
| 1:35.3 | we just extend a little bit longer. |
| 1:38.3 | But we have buyers, we have very substantial American buyers that want to buy it. |
| 1:41.8 | The problem is that it's not at all certain that China |
| 1:45.4 | will play ball. So this week on the inquiry, we're asking, is time up for TikTok in the US? |
| 1:55.2 | Part one, the Congress TikTok Challenge. The law is called the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, |
| 2:04.6 | which has the very ungainly acronym of Pfefica. |
| 2:11.8 | Our first witness is Alan Rosenstein, an associate professor of law at the University of Minnesota |
| 2:17.4 | in the U.S., |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.