They are never banning TikTok. That’s the gut-check reaction after the White House rolled out a fresh account less than a month before the supposed cutoff. Questions pile up: isn’t the app barred on government-issued devices? Are posts coming from personal phones? If the security risk is real, why build a new audience now?

Deadlines keep shifting, and the smart money says another extension is baked in. The whole move reads like optics over policy—“how do you do, fellow kids?” energy in official packaging. It’s savvy growth-hacking, sure, but it muddles the message: Is this platform a hazard or a megaphone?

Reality check: many federal offices do restrict the app on work devices, and comms teams can run accounts on non-government hardware. Does that solve the bigger data question? Not really; it just pushes the risk perimeter outward.

Here’s the playbook to watch: if the account surges, expect the “ban” to morph into a carveout, a divest-or-delay clause, anything but a hard stop. If it sputters, it’ll quietly disappear. The loudest headline isn’t the launch—it’s whether the deadline quietly melts away.