On Jan. 19 2025, TikTok was banned in the United States for a few hours.*
The latest resolution from the U.S. Supreme Court, issued on Jan. 17, made it “unlawful for companies in the United States to provide services to distribute, maintain or update the social media platform TikTok, unless U.S. operation of the platform is severed from Chinese control.”
The internet did what it does best, and many U.S.-based TikTok users protest the ban by moving to the app 小红书国际版 (“Xiaohongshu”), also known as REDnote. Ironically, this app is entirely Chinese-owned and operated from mainland China, unlike TikTok.
This digital migration sparkled both an unexpected cultural and language exchange and raised concerns about freedom of speech on the new platform.
If you struggled to keep track of everything happening, this TikTok ban is just the latest shakeup in the ever-evolving—and let’s face it, exhausting—social media landscape.
For the U.S. TikTok ban, governments cited concerns about data privacy and national security. However, it’s worth noting that many U.S. legislators hold stock in TikTok’s main competitor, Meta.
Make with that what you will.
Donald Trump, who started this battle during his first presidency, has benefited from TikTok’s role in his newfound popularity among younger voters. After re-election, rumours suggested he might reverse the ban to position himself as the hero who “saved” TikTok. Trump also invited TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew to his inauguration on Jan. 20, 2025.
*EDIT: It only took about 13 hours of ban and about an hour since I published the original post for TikTok to be restored in the United States after Donald Trump provided the reassurance to service providers.
“We thank President Trump for providing the necessary clarity and assurance to our service providers that they will face no penalties providing TikTok to over 170 million Americans and allowing over 7 million small businesses to thrive,” said TikTok on a statement released around noon on Jan. 19.
Meta shifts content moderation
Meta (parent company of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads) is dealing with a mess of its own making. In a bid to align with the new U.S. presidency, Mark Zuckerberg has cut ties with fact-checking organizations, instead introducing “community notes.”
Simultaneously, Meta has relaxed content moderation policies, allowing homophobic and transphobic discourse to flourish unchecked, much to the delight of its most hateful factions.
In Canada, due to the fallout from Bill C-18, Meta has banned news content from Facebook and Instagram. Strangely, Threads still allows news, but its algorithm ensures this content rarely gains traction.
2025 was not be the best year to hang out on Meta-owned platforms.
But what are the alternatives?
The Twitter (sorry, X) exodus
Elon Musk made a huge mess of what once was my favourite social media platform: Twitter—Can we agree on not calling it X?
Many text-based alternatives have emerged, including Mastodon or Threads, but Bluesky seems to be the standout. Its early days were reminiscent of Twitter circa 2009, with a lighthearted, ad-free, bot-free vibe. I even brought back #FollowFriday, and it was refreshing to be on a platform that wasn’t hostile to news content.
But we are not in 2009 anymore, and our social media habits have shifted. Platforms conditioned us to crave visual content and vertical videos (remember when we hated them?).
Against this backdrop, Bluesky feels limited.
In another twist, Bluesky has recently announced plans to develop Flashes, its answer to Instagram. Would I use it? Maybe. Would you?
In memoriam
I do want to close this blog post remembering the fallen platforms that we took for granted when we had them:
- MSN Messenger (1999 – 2014)
- MySpace (2003 – 2019)
- Fotolog (2002 – 2019)
- Google+ (2011 – 2019)
- Vine (2012 – 2017)
R.I.P. You’re gone but never forgotten.
The (early) song of the year is now on Spotify, too.
Oriol Salvador 
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