Some people are sniggering about the shortest-ever ban on TikTok, which other people suspect was a ploy to cut into the unlimited pie this Chinese innovation has made possible on a global scale.

This social media app has been earning raves for giving many a chance to become “online sensations.” It is, as a BBC report describes it, “the most powerful social media platform” that has made countless people an “overnight success.”

With all eyes on newly inaugurated United States President Donald Trump, the decision to lift the ban he imposed in the first place has made many brows wiggle — or rise. According to a report on CNN, it was a “move by President-elect Donald Trump to save the app” that got US TikTok users to heave giant sighs of relief.

This piece of news actually had some doing a sharp double-take, simply because it was Donald Trump himself who had imposed a ban on the app in 2020, saying that TikTok posed “a national security threat.”

For its part, the app makers had insisted that “it does not share information with Beijing.”

So how did Trump end up the hero here?

Here’s how it happened, based on a recent BBC report.

“Late on Saturday a message appearing on TikTok for US users said a law banning TikTok had been enacted, meaning ‘you can’t use TikTok for now.”

“The video-sharing app was banned over concerns about its links to the Chinese government. It was given until 19 January to be sold to an approved US buyer to avert the ban.

“President Joe Biden had said he would leave the issue to his successor, Donald Trump. The President-elect has said he will “most likely” give TikTok a 90-day reprieve from the ban once he takes office on Monday.”

So, here’s the deal: While many US TikTok users seemed to be panicking over the loss of access to an app that has given countless people a chance to “monetize,” Trump was casually letting it be known that the fate of this doomsday for avid TikTokers was really up to him and him alone.

Let power-trippers learn a thing or two.

“If I decide to do that, I’ll probably announce it on Monday,” Trump told NBC News last weekend. By “that,” the US Chief Executive meant “give a 90-day extension.”

So, Trump said he thought the app was a threat, proceeded to impose a ban and then offered a carrot and stick. People heaved a sigh of relief, most especially the app, which announced: “We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office.”

BBC also reported: “Some 170 million Americans use the app and website. Unless its China-based parent company ByteDance sells the platform or intervention comes from the executive branch, the platform is set to go dark in the US on Sunday.”

Come Monday, there was good news. The most popular app today — a “superior app,” as content creators attest — remains in a key market, but then again what can we learn so far from this exercise?

Politics, like TikTok (as content creator Q Park is quoted in the article), “is a beast.”