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TikTok Ban: Here’s How US Publishers Reported on it

In the night from January 18 to 19, the Chinese entertainment app TikTok was shut down for US users after weeks of speculations and uncertainty. Only one day later, on January 19, Donald Trump announced to many disappointed users that he would sign an executive order delaying the ban, which lead to the app being back online after only 12 hours. This whirlwind of events is, to no surprise, being lively discussed and closely followed in the news, which makes it a great subject for this analysis. With the help of our Trisolute News Dashboard data, we took a close look at the US publishing landscape and how they reported on the TikTok ban and everything surrounding it during the two days where it took place.

We looked at the date range from January 18 to the early morning of January 20 2025. The focus of this analysis is the mobile visibility overall, which includes the following ranking types: News Boxes (headline, text, and carousel), Video Boxes, Publisher and Other Carousels, Web Stories, Featured Snippets, Visual Digest, and Organic Rankings. The keywords we used for this analysis are imported from Google News and Google Trends.

Let’s first have a look at those keywords and some interesting patterns we were able to discover with them:

Keywords

Keywords related to the TikTok ban, sorted by their number of rankings (highest to lowest):

renote ; tiktok ban ; tiktok ; tiktok trump ; trump tiktok ; instagram reels ; tiktok graveyard ; is capcut getting banned ; is lemon8 getting banned ; tiktok marvel snap ; who owns tiktok ; capcut ; bytedance apps ; tiktok stock ; tiktok wrapped ; tiktok website ; tiktok users ; trump tiktok ban ; red note ; ban tiktok ; tiktok musk ; tiktok supreme court ; fire tiktok ban ; tiktok ban marvel snap ; ban trump ; banned tiktok ; tiktok restoring after service trump ; tiktok home ; tiktok dark ; tiktok ban trump ; tiktok coco gauff ; marvel snap tiktok

Interesting finds:

  • The top 10 keywords make up 75% of the total number of rankings (17,088 out of 22,732 rankings).
  • TikTok’s competitor Rednote (keyword ‘rednote’) leads list the of rankings, with 2,998 rankings in total (13 % of total rankings). Instagram Reels, another TikTok-alternative for many affected users, is also among the top 10, with 1,196 rankings (5% of total rankings).
  • Out of the 33 keywords in the list, 25 contain the term ‘tiktok’. Those keywords generate 15,861 rankings (70% of total rankings).
  • 2,795 total rankings are generated from keywords concerning other apps that are or might be affected by the ban (‘is capcut getting banned’ ; ‘is lemon8 getting banned’ ; tiktok marvel snap’ ; capcut ; tiktok ban marvel snap’ ; ‘marvel snap tiktok’). Two of those keywords are full questions. Another keyword with a full question in the list is: ‘who owns tiktok’ (578 rankings). This could hint to FAQ articles proving a good fit in this context.
  • Keywords containing ‘trump’ (e.g. ‘tiktok trump’, ‘trump tiktok’) make up 20% of the total rankings (4,552 out of 22,732 rankings). Other keywords containing peoples’ names that can be found in the list are: ‘tiktok musk’ (161 rankings), toktok coco gauff (112 rankings).

After examining the keyword list on the topic of the TikTok ban, let’s have a look at the top 5 publishers in the US and what their course of visibility looked like from January 18 to the morning of January 19:

Top 5 publishers

Line graph showing the top five US publishers on the TikTok ban and their course in visibility from January 18 to the morning of January 20. Additionally, three vertical lines show the highlights of the ban: The app's shutdown (January 18, 11 p.m.), Trump's announcement of signing an executive order against the ban (January 19, 10 a.m.), and the app being back online (January 19, 1-2 p.m. The top five publishers are: NBC News, Forbes, New York Times, CNN, and USA Today.

Top 5 US publishers on the TikTok ban

1. nbcnews.com

NBC News leads the list of publishers, with an impressive course of visibility and a total of 1,684 rankings for the examined time frame. This publisher’s top keyword is ‘tiktok trump’, which contributed 345 rankings to that total score. NBC News’ peak in visibility can be observed at 7:00 p.m. on January 18, four hours before the ban was actually set in motion for US users. The publisher’s visibility remains relatively stable for the rest of the time, with another noticeable peak on January 19 at 3:00 p.m. NBC News’ most visible article on the topic is: Trump says he will ‘most likely’ give TikTok 90-day extension to avoid ban.

2. forbes.com

In second place is Forbes Magazine, with another amazing performance, that can especially be seen on the early morning hours of January 18. The publisher’s peak in visibility can be observed at 6 a.m. on that same day, most likely due to preliminary reporting and predictions as to how the ban will take place. In total, Forbes Magazine gained 892 rankings, with their top keyword ‘tiktok ban’ contributing 244 rankings to that number. Their top article, TikTok Ban: Supreme Court Upholds Law Barring App From The U.S.—Here’s Everything We Know, gives a detailed timeline of everything that has happened with the ban so far.

3. nytimes.com

The New York Times takes an excellent third place in the matter. Their course of visibility shows a massive peak which overshadows all other competitors on January 18 at 1:00 p.m., which also marks the time before the ban took place. Another surge can be seen for the whole of January 19, starting right after the app was back online for US users. In total, the New York Times gained 929 rankings. The top keyword ‘tiktok’ contributed 206 rankings to that. The publisher’s top article, Instagram Debuts New Video-Editing App, as TikTok Deals With a Ban, concerns itself with a new release by TikTok’s competitor Instagram at the time of the app’s ban in the US.

4. cnn.com

CNN, who is in fourth place overall, reached an impressive 1,282 ranking in total during the examined time-frame. Their top keyword ‘tiktok trump’, which contributed 284 rankings to that total number, is the only top keyword among the publishers to mention President Trump. The publisher’s peak can be observed on January 18 at 6:00 p.m., which once again marks a few hours prior to TikTok’s planned shutdown in the US. CNN’s top article, TikTok shuts down in the United States hours ahead of a ban, focuses on the surprising premature shutdown of the app.

5. usatoday.com

Last but not least, USA Today takes an amazing fifth place among the US publishers that reported on the TikTok ban. This publisher’s peak in visibility takes place on two occasions: First, a peak can be observed right before the shutdown on January 18, 9:00 p.m. and then again on January 19, 1:00 p.m., right when the app started going back online. In total, USA Today gained 1,223 rankings during the examined time-frame, with their top keyword ‘tiktok graveyard’ (which refers to users being able to display their TikTok statistics on the app before the shutdown) contributing 217 rankings to that number. Their top article also refers to the so-called TikTok graveyard: TikTok Graveyard: How to make data tombstone before looming app ban.

Key Insights

When looking at the list of keywords that ranked during the days of the TikTok ban and its repeal, we were able to make out some interesting patterns. Most of the keywords relevant to that topic contained the term ‘tiktok’, which made up 70% of the total rankings. Nevertheless, the keyword with the most rankings was ‘rednote’, referring to a competitive app that is known as a much-discussed alternative after the ban for many users. Donald Trump, who is responsible for the app being back online after a few hours, makes up 20% of the total rankings.

The top five US publishers, NBC News, Forbes Magazine, New York Times, CNN, and USA Today all showed impressive courses of visibility as well as great numbers of rankings during the examined time-frame. Corresponding to the list of total keywords, all of those publishers’ top keywords contain the term ‘tiktok’. Most of the publishers’ peaks in visibility can be observed on the day before the shutdown (January 18), only USA Today also has one of its two main peaks on January 19, at the time the app was once again available in the US.

It remains interesting how the whole ordeal will play out in the future.

If you’re interested in the year 2024 in Politics from a publisher’s POV, check out this article. If you’re more of a Science and Technology person, this article is for you.

 

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