I guess I should backtrack a little bit and say something like "the end result of all of this will be, at worst, the US government in some capacity gaining some sort of algorithmic control over TikTok within the US specifically and/or some sort of data sharing agreement."

If we're being 100%, they can't ban TikTok and they know it, we know it, everyone including the Chinese government knows it. So they'll work something out and they'll pretend they did something.

Online poker was "banned" almost 20 years ago. Unregulated Crypto trading, in many forms, had the same treatment a few years back and yet Americans also still participate in that. I'm not trying to be... whatever here. I don't care that much about TikTok, the only aspect of this I "care" about a lot actually is the clear targeting of it for a very specific reason right now... young people are anti-Israel and anti-Zionist. Congress, out of touch as always, but also just seeking a multi-point "win" (optically anyway, for grandparents voting), is doing something to appease the Israel-lobby, appease their own internal fascistic tendencies to crush correct information they can't control, to punish "the kids" they view as wrong (or know are right, more likely) and just generally to appease grandmas all over the US who can't shut up about how "illegals are invading" or alternatively how "Trump is literally Hitler and Putin and Mussolini" and as a result their grandkids haven't called in months or years. They think if the "damn ticktaks" is banned little Jimmy will take 5 minutes to call. He won't, though.