Her Campus Logo Her Campus Logo
will capcut be banned
will capcut be banned
Ale Lizama via Dupe; CapCut
TikTok Ban

Will CapCut Be Banned? It’s Also Owned By ByteDance

Maia Hull

After months of confusion about whether or not TikTok will really be banned, the app feels closer than ever to its demise in the United States. The Jan. 19 deadline for TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, to sell the company is only days away, with no mention of any deal to sell the company in order to keep it available for United States consumption. 

The fear that TikTok could be banned in the United States has been top of mind for many U.S. TikTok users since April 2024, when President Joe Biden signed a bill that would ban TikTok in the country unless ByteDance sells its U.S. stake in the company. The bill was made with the fear that the Chinese-owned company had access to large amounts of personal data, and that it could compromise national security. 

The company ByteDance owns multiple other applications besides TikTok, including another social media platform called Lemon8, which many people are declaring to be the replacement for TikTok, as well as CapCut, a popular video editing app. CapCut is commonly used to create short-form videos, and therefore is pretty popular for making TikTok posts. It allows users to animate images and videos, add images and audio to videos, use AI templates to generate photos and videos, and more. 

But if TikTok gets banned, does that mean other ByteDance-owned apps are also on the chopping block? Although there is currently no mention of a mass ByteDance boycott in the U.S., it does not seem unreasonable to guess that the ban could eventually apply to everything owned by this parent company — including CapCut.

As the Jan. 19 TikTok ban deadline draws closer, there has been a cry to extend the deadline for ByteDance to complete the sale. There have even been lawmakers attempting to extend to deadline, such as Sen. Edward Markey, who said he planned to introduce legislation to delay the deadline by an additional 270 days. 

President-elect Donald Trump has also spoken out about the ban, and has even asked the Supreme Court to delay the ban. As of the time of publication, the Supreme Court has not yet come to a decision. Ultimately, it remains unclear whether or not this ban on TikTok will extend to other apps owned by ByteDance, but you might as well get in as many CapCut projects now — while you’re sure you still can.

Maia Hull

UCLA '26

Maia is a second year microbiology and immunology major and mathematics minor from San Diego, CA. She loves to read and write, snowboard, go swimming, and hang out with friends, as well as the occasional shopping spree.