Can Congress undo the TikTok ban? Anupam Chander on the issue of privacy and security violations in video app store ByteDance
The TikTok app can be installed on a person’s phone if they don’t already have it. If you have an Android device, you can download the app directly from the site and adjust a few settings to get it installed. If you have an iPhone, it can be hard to work around it. We cover all of these below.
“You now have some of the biggest corporations in the world accepting the word of the Trump Justice Department that this statute won’t be weaponized against them,” said Georgetown University law professor Anupam Chander. “This could help them stay on the good side of the Trump administration and address the financial hit they’re taking by not hosting TikTok on app stores.”
Americans’ data and political views may be vulnerable to the Chinese government, if ByteDance is answerable to them.
The law offers one way out of this impasse: It allows the president to undo the ban if he can show Congress that a deal has been made to sever TikTok from ByteDance, bringing TikTok into compliance with the law. President Trump has stated that he would like the US to get a 50% stake in the video app.
NPR reported last month that Oracle, Microsoft and other American investors are putting together a bid to purchase TikTok’s U.S. operation under the guidance of top White House officials. Under such a deal, ByteDance could retain a minority stake in the video service, according to two people with direct knowledge of the talks who were not authorized to speak publicly about the deliberations, which are still underway.
The creator of Mr. Beast and the ex- Dodgers owner have said that they are interested in buying.
TikTok Lite and Lite: How to Get TikTok back on your phone if you deleted it after the ban
It signaled that the firms were restoring the support for TikTok because of Trump’s plan to rescue the app.
When you set up aVPN you can identify yourself as coming from that country. There are a variety of VPNs available; two that have been recommended to me by colleagues are NordVPN and Proton VPN
A reviews editor manages how-tos. For more than a decade she has been an editor, writer, and occasional sci-fi author. She can be found on Threads as @barbarask.
You’ll get a choice of TikTok Lite (a smaller version that takes up 34.3MB) and TikTok (409MB). The lite version is meant for older phones and slower internet connections. To download, select which one you want.
Once the download is done and you’ve selected Open, you may get a notice telling you that your phone isn’t allowed to install unknown apps and that you have to change that in Settings. There will be a link to your Settings in the notice; tap it.
If you want to be safe from other outside apps being installed on your phone, you can go back into Settings > Apps > Special app access > Install unknown apps > Chrome and toggle Allow from this source off.
You can, however, still access TikTok on a browser. If you visit , you can access your feed, watch videos, see and add comments, and add new favorites. A proper app can be accessed through an icon on your homescreen. You can do it via the Share button, or if you first sign in, you can do it.
TikTok vs. the App Store: How to get around that hoops without downloading an app that doesn’t exist in the US
This is not even mentioning the frustration of the constant pop-ups and nudges telling me that I could “Get the full app experience” by downloading the app — which, of course, wasn’t available to download.
When the TikTok app disappeared, one suggestion was to use a VPN to fool your phone or computer into believing you weren’t in the US. If you’re a TikTok creator with an iPhone, you don’t have a lot of options other than finding an app for the phone that still works.
Users are visiting the correct region for the App Store if Apple has many checks in place. Getting around that involves jumping through quite a few hoops and ultimately may not work out — it’s a lot more work than simply downloading a VPN and setting your location to somewhere outside the US.
