This market takes into consideration the status of TikTok on April 1st, 00:00 PST. So any upcoming bans/acquisitions will not matter if they aren't legally finalised and already in place.
Resolves to "Usable by the public and owned by ByteDance" if the vast majority of the public can still legally download TikTok from major app stores in the US and visit TikTok.com without needing a VPN. (edit: ByteDance must own a majority position, aka greater than 50%).
Resolves to "Usable by the public and not owned by ByteDance" if the above criteria are true, however majority ownership is held by a company that is not ByteDance Ltd. This could include a new company formed with ties to ByteDance.
Resolves to "Completely banned in the US" if the vast majority of the public can not legally download TikTok from major app stores in the US, can not watch content on their TikTok app, and can not access TikTok.com without needing a VPN.
Resolves to "Restricted in the US and owned by ByteDance" if meaningful restrictions have been put into place but some US residents can still legally access some TikTok content. Note that any existing restrictions, such as those on government employees, will not be taken into account. This could include, but is not limited to:
Watching existing content on desktop without being logged in.
Existing users can still use TikTok but new users cannot download it.
TikTok is only available in some "lite" version in the US with significantly less features than in other countries.
Resolves to "integrated with another app/platform" if TikTok no longer exists as its own app and has been acquired or merged with another company's platform. Note that this is similar to "Usable by the public and owned by ByteDance", however, the distinct difference is that for this option TikTok should no longer exist as its own app/website in the US (an archive version of some sort would not count). Criteria clarification: If it is first banned, and then in response they integrated by April 1st then it will resolve to this answer and not completely banned.
Update 2025-02-13 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): Clarification on Ambiguous Scenario:
In the unusual case where TikTok’s app is unavailable in the US but the website remains accessible, and ByteDance does not hold a majority ownership:
The resolution will be split 50:50 between Usable by the public and not owned by ByteDance and Restricted in the US and owned by ByteDance.
This adjustment is intended to fairly cover the scenario under the existing market structure.
1,000@summer_of_bliss like…
suppose the following are true on april 1st: 1) tiktok app unavailable in the US, 2) tiktok website IS available, AND 3) bytedance does not own tiktok. which option this resolve to?
it can’t be "Usable by the public and owned by ByteDance" because this requires the app to be available.
it can’t be "Usable by the public and not owned by ByteDance" for the same reason.
it can’t be "Completely banned in the US" since the tiktok website is available by assumption.
it can’t be "integrated with another app/platform" bc this scenario meets none of the criteria.
and this marked is linked multi choice.
so it must be "Restricted in the US and owned by ByteDance". even though in this scenario it is NOT owned by bytedance. indeed nowhere in the criteria for this option is ownership by bytedance required. despite the words “owned by bytedance”.
@Manifold am i correct that this is how the market would resolve in this scenario? if so, would you consider rewording option 4?
@summer_of_bliss hmm this is a valid point. I didn't make the "restricted in the US and not owned by Bytedance" as it seemed implausible, but that scenario should be covered by at least one of the answers. I think the fairest thing to do based on the existing market structure would be to resolve it split 50:50 between "Usable by the public and not owned by ByteDance" and "Restricted in the US and owned by ByteDance" but I'm not too worried as this case seems very unlikely.
@Manifold I don’t understand why usable by Public and not owned by ByteDance is not within the realm of possibility
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So what if it's a 50/50 ownership structure? I think the "not owned" option be expanded to include this and renamed to "non-majority owned".
Currently it only says someone else must own the majority, which wouldn't be true in a 50/50 ownership split.
Now that trump has not invoked the 90 day extension, I think it is quite unlikely it will be un-restricted by April 1st. Unless the law is repealed, I can't imagine Google and Apple risking $850B in liability just to make the President happy.
https://daringfireball.net/2025/01/npr_trump_tiktok
@WillJevons Bit confused by your post. How does this suggest the top option is still not by far the most likely? The 75 days will still let tiktok exist as is untilnpast april 1st. I think what the post suggests is that trump's executive order is in violation of the constitution and therefore won't hold up?
i consider that unlikely lol. and the republican party bows to that man.
@No_uh If Apple violates the law, they are theoretically liable for the civil penalties $5k per download. President has no authority to remove the civil liability imposed by Congress. All he can do is promise not to sue them. But! Even if you think the President is trustworthy, the statute of limitations is 5 years so the next DoJ (50% chance of being a lefty, maybe even Lina Kahn lol) will have the opportunity to sue Apple for $850b. Why would Apple or Google ever take that bet?
So it remains off of the app store and I expect it to remain off of the app store unless either:
The law is repealed. (<5% chance as it pass by the senate with 79 votes lol)
The president officially invokes the 90 day extension. (technically requires a legally binding deal to sell Tiktok). Even then, both chatgpt (https://chatgpt.com/share/6791be97-f144-8000-854e-2efe25341bfa) and Claude STILL don't think this is possible because you need to invoke the extension before the initial 270 days. There's still some chance (10%?) the president tries to invoke it anyways and that gives the cowardly lawyers at big tech companies enough cover.
Remaining off the App Store alone is sufficient for the "Restricted" Criteria to resolve as True. Idk what's going to happen but the combination of "On the App Store AND owned by Bytedance" is unlikely.
@DylanSlagh Generally, it's bad to answer questions like this because the onus is on the traders to figure out what the status quo and we don't want to answer it without researching to avoid misleading traders.
That said (aka, take this with some salt), it seems I can watch TikTok on my browser and phone right now, but if it is also unavailable in the iOS app store, then yes, this would fall under the restricted category.
@Manifold for two years, the overwhelming consensus* amongst traders and creators is that creators should be able to answer the questions "how would this resolve right now?" and "how would this resolve if x happens?"
To say that you don't want to answer this without doing research because you might mislead just tells us that you haven't thought the question through. That's a strong signal not to bet, but I shouldn't be getting this signal from questions the platform itself has created.
*With only a few notable exceptions
@JoshuaWilkes Sorry, perhaps I worded the response poorly.
We are happy to make any clarifications. I just wanted to make it clear that at the moment of answering the question I hadn't researched what the status quo was so I was taking their word that it's not in the app store but works as normal otherwise.
I am instructing the Attorney General not to take any action to enforce the Act for a period of 75 days from today
Trump has issued an executive order to not enforce the ban before April 5.