Americans are less supportive of a possible TikTok ban than they were 18 months ago, according to a new survey ahead of a government deadline next year to force a sale or bar the app from US users.  

Just 32% of US adults back a TikTok ban, according to survey data from Pew Research released on Thursday. Pew found that 38% of US adults supported a ban last fall and 50% were in favour in March 2023. 

Meanwhile, half of Americans now doubt TikTok will be banned at all, calling it “very or somewhat unlikely”.

The survey showed that many Americans have shifted their stance on TikTok in the past year and a half, including over the past five months since President Joe Biden signed a law that requires TikTok’s Chinese-based parent company, ByteDance Ltd, to divest its ownership in the app or face a ban in the country. US lawmakers said they feared potential privacy and security issues related to TikTok’s Chinese ownership. 

The survey didn’t ask respondents why their opinions had changed. Former president Donald Trump, who tried to ban TikTok while in office in 2020, has publicly reversed his opinion on the app and created an account earlier this year. Vice President Kamala Harris, who is running against Trump for president, has also used the app to campaign ahead of November’s US election. Despite signing the bill that could ultimately ban the app, Biden has also created an account. 

Researchers found that views about the app remain divided along party lines. Republicans and Republican-leaning independents are more likely to think TikTok threatens national security, and are nearly twice as likely to support a ban than Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, Pew found. Even so, support for the ban has dropped by nearly 20 percentage points within each party since March 2023. 

ByteDance has until January to sell the app or face a ban in the US under the law signed by Biden. That deadline can be pushed back 90 days if a sale seems to be in progress, and legal action could further delay a ban from taking effect. TikTok has sued the US to try to reverse the law. 

Pew surveyed 10,658 adults from July 15 to Aug 4. The results have a margin of error of plus or minus 1.2 percentage points.

  - Bloomberg