TikTok now says it will "go dark" for its American users as soon as the January 19 ban goes into effect. Experts had expected it to disappear from app stores but still work on people's phones for several months until the lack of updates saw it become unstable. Photo / Getty

TikTok going dark: $100m spender Zuru says ‘It’s a negotiating tactic’

Author: Chris Keall,
Publish Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2025, 9:39am

On Friday, the US Supreme Court upheld a law that will see TikTok banned on January 19 (Monday January 20 NZT), on national security grounds, if it’s not sold by its Chinese owner ByteDance.
ByteDance says TikTok will “go dark” for its US users immediately when the ban takes effect. Users in other countries won’t be affected.
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.

One of TikTok’s largest advertisers is based in Auckland - and it says it’s relatively unconcerned about the TikTok ban, which it sees as likely to be over-turned by President-elect Donald Trump.

“Trump will likely look to negotiate a deal that keeps TikTok operational in the US,” Zuru’s global head of digital Rob Thomas told the Herald.

“While the threat of going dark is significant, it is likely to be a negotiation tactic as they push to enter productive discussions with the Trump administration,” Thomas said.

Trump, who will take office on January 20, said on Saturday that he’s considering an executive order to delay the ban for 60 to 90 days to give time to negotiate with ByteDance.

That could still leave TikTok’s 170 million American users without access to the app for at least 24 hours.

ByteDance said on Saturday that its app would immediately “go dark” in the US as the ban took effect on January 19 (Monday January 20 NZT), catching pundits on the hop.

Pro-TikTok protestors outside the Supreme Court last week. The app claims 170m users in the US. Photo / Getty Images

Experts had been saying that although the sale or ban law would see TikTok disappear from Apple and Google’s app stores (or see the pair face heavy penalties), it would still be operational on American users’ phones for several months until the lack of updates made it buggy and unstable and, eventually, not able to work at all.

Trump could now be positioning himself as a white knight. After the drama of TikTok going offline for Americans, he could save the day by brokering a sale - the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg have reported that Chinese officials have entered talks with Elon Musk as a possible buyer.

Whatever happens in the US, TikTok will remain accessible as usual for its users in New Zealand and other countries.

The Herald understands Zuru spends around $100 million on media each year.

“The majority of our global media spend in 2025 is forecasted to be in digital channels, over half of which will be in the US. TikTok has been one of our key digital channels to-date, due to our ability to connect with younger audiences on there in a creative and innovative way,” Thomas said.

Zuru had been expecting the Supreme Court to uphold the ban after both conservative and liberal Justices asked tough questions at a hearing earlier this month. “Are we supposed to ignore the fact that the ultimate parent is, in fact, subject to doing intelligence work for the Chinese Government?” asked Chief Justice John Roberts, a Republican appointee.

TikTok chief executive Shou Zi Chew at a US Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in January 2024. Photo / AFP

Thomas would not be drawn on where Zuru would reallocate its spending if Trump was unable to negotiate a solution. Agencies that manage US influencers have been encouraging them to diversify their presence with accounts on Instagram and YouTube too, while two upstart Chinese apps that look a lot like TikTok - RedNote and Lemon8 - have been rapid growing in popularity with content creators.

“Our position is to not make knee-jerk reactions. There is a lot of speculation as to what the impact of the ruling will be, but nothing has been confirmed. We will always focus our advertising and media investment on the platforms where our Gen Z and Millennial customers are,” he said.

“We will closely monitor the behaviour of our customers and the platforms where they are consuming content. Our strength comes from our ability to be agile and move at speed based on cultural trends.”

Zuru’s operations include toys, consumer products and content. Owners Nick and Mat Mowbray topped NBR’s 2024 rich list with an estimated worth of $20 billion.

TikTok CEO to be inauguration guest of honour

Last week, Trump cemented conversion to a pro-TikTok stance by inviting the apps chief executive Shou Chew to be a guest of honour at his inauguration.

It wasn’t always like that. In August 2020, during the final months of his first term, Trump signed an executive order to ban TikTok undless it was divested by ByteDance.

Trump’s executive order said:

“TikTok automatically captures vast swaths of information from its users, including Internet and other network activity information such as location data and browsing and search histories. This data collection threatens to allow the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans’ personal and proprietary information — potentially allowing China to track the locations of Federal employees and contractors, build dossiers of personal information for blackmail, and conduct corporate espionage.

“TikTok also reportedly censors content that the Chinese Communist Party deems politically sensitive, such as content concerning protests in Hong Kong and China’s treatment of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities.

“This mobile application may also be used for disinformation campaigns that benefit the Chinese Communist Party, such as when TikTok videos spread debunked conspiracy theories about the origins of the 2019 Novel Coronavirus.

“These risks are real. The Department of Homeland Security, Transportation Security Administration, and the United States Armed Forces have already banned the use of TikTok on Federal Government phones. The Government of India recently banned the use of TikTok.”

ByteDance said it operates independently from the Chinese Government and has taken steps to ensure Americans’ privacy, such as hosting its US service at data centres owned by Larry Ellison’s Oracle in Texas. It was able to tie up the executive order in legal appeals until Trump was voted out of office.

Trump subsequently became a fan of the platform, which was used heavily by his allies and supporters during the presidential campaign. The Harris campaign also had a high-rotate TikTok account.

There has also been a shift in the background commercial landscape. Billionaire Wall St financier and Republican “mega-donor” Jeff Yass is an investor in both ByteDance and Trump Media & Technology, owner of the ex-President’s Truth Social platform. The New York Times reported that Yass had recruited a number of ex-Trump staffers to lobby against a TikTok ban. Trump said his position had not been influenced by Yass.

New Zealand’s Parliamentary Service joined its counterparts in Canada and Australia in banning TikTok on MPs’ phones in 2023 – a ban that is still in place, even if our Prime Minister and many of his colleagues on both sides of the House remain enthusiastic users of the platform on personal devices, or at least those run by social media managers outside Beehive systems.

A bipartisan drubbing

On March 7 last year, a bipartisan group of US lawmakers received a closed-door security briefing on TikTok.

Whatever those members of the Energy and Commerce Committee saw (which was never made public) was sufficiently disturbing that they voted 50-0 to fast-track legislation that would force ByteDance to sell the app by January 19, 2025 or face a ban.

Republicans and Democrats duly banded together in a rare display of unity to pass the measure through Congress (the Senate vote was 79 to 18, the House of Representatives 360 to 58). It was then signed into law by President Joe Biden and upheld by the Supreme Court with its January 17 ruling.

Chris Keall is an Auckland-based member of the Herald’s business team. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is the technology editor and a senior business writer.

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