Analysts said that if the Trump administration decides to take TikTok offline, it is "only a matter of time" before the U.S. ban on TikTok spreads to allies and other regions.

The application Has been closed in the United States U.S. lawmakers previously ruled that ByteDance posed a national security risk due to parent company ByteDance’s ties to the Chinese government, a relationship that ByteDance has denied.

Incoming President Trump said he opposed the ban and would find a way to reverse it.

If the U.S. ban goes ahead, experts point to previous expulsions of Chinese and Russian tech companies on national security grounds as a potential blueprint for how a TikTok ban could spread around the world.

"The similarities between TikTok and what happened to China's Huawei and Russia's Kaspersky suggest it's only a matter of time before a phased-in ban takes effect," said Emily Taylor, editor of Cyber ​​Policy Journal.

In both cases, the companies were accused by the United States of posing a threat to national security, but cybersecurity authorities never disclosed any conclusive evidence.

The same thing happened with TikTok.

Under President Trump, Kaspersky's flagship antivirus software product was banned from use on U.S. civilian and military computers in 2017 after it was accused of being used by the Kremlin in a hack that was never confirmed.

Britain followed almost immediately, and other allies followed with restrictions, warnings or bans.

It took several years before a nationwide ban finally took effect in the United States last year, but by then it was almost redundant. Kaspersky closed its U.S. operations and later its U.K. office said it had no viable business there.

The company has argued that the U.S. government's decision was based on "geopolitical climate and theoretical concerns" rather than independently verified risks.

according to Bitsight Research After the ban was announced, Kaspersky usage declined, not just in the United States, but in at least 25 other countries, even countries that had no public policy of banning the software.

Almost the exact same thing happened to Chinese telecom giant Huawei.

The United States accuses Huawei and other Chinese technology companies of being too close to the Chinese government. It argued that the company's popular 5G kit should not be used to build telecommunications systems where it could be used to monitor or degrade communications quality.

Former Huawei employees in the UK said that once the United States decides to ban, block or restrict Huawei, its allies will almost certainly follow suit.

The former insider said: “The UK and other countries talk about coming to their own conclusions independently on security issues, but the US lobbying is relentless behind closed doors. They have warned about national security risks, but the risks Never supported by evidence." Didn't want to be named.

Intense U.S. lobbying of allies on security issues is common in many aspects of cyber policy.

Usually starting with the Five Eyes countries.

Close intelligence-sharing arrangements are between five English-speaking democracies: the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

So far, all members have banned the use of TikTok on government devices, and some have issued public warnings. Canada ordered TikTok to cease operations in Canada on the grounds of national security.

The ripple effects across the Five Eyes alliance could be considerable, with restrictions already spreading, with the app banned from the devices of government employees, civil servants or military personnel in countries including Austria, Belgium, Estonia, France, the Netherlands, Norway and Taiwan.

Ciaran Martin, who headed the UK's National Cyber ​​Security Center during the bans of Huawei and Kaspersky, agreed that generally when the US makes a national security or strategic decision against a company, the UK and its allies end up All will follow suit.

However, as with everything else related to TikTok, he said there is a huge caveat to the incoming Trump administration.

"We don't know yet if TikTok will be an exception because Trump has said he opposes the ban, so will he order allies to replicate the ban? We don't know yet."

Trump's stance on TikTok has changed dramatically since his first term as president, when he tried to ban the app. His re-election campaign has since gained support through TikTok videos, and he has become a supporter.

Emily Taylor agrees that this unknown factor may set TikTok apart from Huawei and Kaspersky.

"It depends on how much pressure the government is willing to exert," she told the BBC.

"If their foreign policy agenda is full, forcing other allies to comply with the ban may fall on the list, leaving countries to wait it out".

A government spokesman said on Saturday that there were currently "no plans" to ban TikTok in the UK. “We work with all major social media companies to understand their plans to keep UK data safe and ensure they meet the high data protection and cybersecurity standards we expect.”

Another aspect to consider about TikTok's future post-U.S. ban is whether the app can continue to thrive without a U.S. customer base.

Any app that loses 170 million users will suffer, but U.S. users are particularly valuable to creators, advertisers and direct spending from the TikTok Shop.

If the rest of the West follows suit, it will reduce the flow of money into the company and limit the development of new features, further cementing the dominance of U.S. platforms like Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts and Snapchat.

Pakistan, Afghanistan and India are also huge markets where TikTok has also been banned. It has no presence in China due to the presence of its sister app TikTok.

Both Kaspersky and Huawei have managed to weather the storm by relying on their local customer base and turning to regions such as Africa and the Middle East.

So it might be possible for TikTok to build a user base here. But if the U.S. ban spreads around the world, the app may never be as big as it is now, and will likely wither and slowly die.