TikTok is a Chinese video-sharing social networking service owned by ByteDance, a Beijing-based internet technology company founded in 2012. TikTok has become tremendously popular and has over 1.5 billion downloads and has been the most downloaded app of all time in 2020.

However, TikTok has recently been linked to significant spying and other privacy concerns. This, and other growing concerns of Chinese influence, have made it identified by the US as a potential national security threat. India also recently banned TikTok.

This has made Arpit Gupta, an Assistant Professor of Finance at NYU Stern, predict that the US will also ban Tik Tok by the end of the year. He however hasn't yet put a probability on that statement. Will you?

This question will resolve positive if a credible media report indicates that the US government has taken action with the effect that a typical American cannot do any of the following:

• download the TikTok mobile app from the Google Play Store (at least without some sort of technical circumvention)

• similarly for the iOS App Store

• use the app if it was previously downloaded

This question will either close at the end of July or retroactively to three days prior to the announcement if the announcement is earlier than the end of July.