How even a temporary US ban could be a potential disaster for TikTok

The ban will harm the company irreversibly by first stagnating and then declining its user base

TikTok, owned by China's ByteDance, has been racing to avoid a crackdown on its US operations after being at loggerheads with the US government, which has expressed concerns over the handling of personal data by the video app.
 

While ByteDance is still in talks with US investors, the White House and the Chinese government over how to structure the deal, the Trump administration had sought to ban new downloads of the app from US app stores from Sept. 27. A US judge has temporarily blocked that order.
 

TikTok, in a court filing dated Sept. 23, provided an analysis of how