A few months into 2020, lawmakers in America and Europe tried to completely ban the popular app TikTok. The attempt at a ban did not go through three years ago and was ultimately stopped by the court.

“TikTok was set to be effectively banned in the United States on Nov. 12 [2020] after President Trump issued an executive order in August stating it was a national security threat due to its parent company’s ties to China. The Commerce Department laid out the specifics of that ban in September, setting initial measures that would have removed TikTok from U.S. app stores and more serious measures that would have prevented Internet businesses in the country from working with TikTok,” wrote Rachel Lerman from the Washington Post.

The ban in 2020 has yet to commence or affect the app’s functions. Fast forward three years later, the Biden Administration is attempting another ban.

The reason the Biden Administration wants to ban TikTok is for security reasons. The push to ban TikTok is mainly coming from Republican lawmakers as they are worried that ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company could be using user data to track browsing history and location. 

“The biggest issue is that users are largely unaware of the true risks of foreign governments using their user data,” said Anton Dahbura, executive director of Johns Hopkins University Information Security Institute. 

On March 16, the Biden Administration demanded that China sell TikTok or face a ban in the U.S. This got a lot of support from Capitol Hill and gained more momentum. 

Although now it seems unlikely that TikTok will be banned, some lawmakers, legal and security experts say a ban may face too many hurdles to work.

Some insiders are even starting to worry that the government may never be able to restrict TikTok’s use meaningfully — and are considering alternative approaches to mitigate any threat it poses.