The TikTok ban is back in court — in Meta’s antitrust trial

TikTok is back in a Washington, DC courthouse discussing the US law that — at least on paper — effectively banned the app. The FTC pointed to a TikTok statement warning that its unique services couldn’t be easily replaced in the US — in other words, the agency argues, it’s not interchangeable with an app like Meta’s Instagram. TikTok warned that even a temporary ban “would cause significant and irreversible harms to our business”Meta, on the other hand, pointed to statements TikTok made about what might happen once the ban took effect. Ultimately, Trump’s delay of the full impact of the ban has halted the natural experiment that would tell us where users would turn without TikTok. And Meta’s trial might be over before any deal is made.