TikTok restored service in the United States on Sunday (January 19, 2025) after briefly going dark, as a law banning the wildly popular app on national security grounds came into effect.
TikTok credited President-elect Donald Trump, who retakes power on Monday, for making the reversal possible – though the outgoing administration of President Joe Biden had earlier said that it would not enforce any ban.
The video-sharing app had shut down in the United States late on Saturday as a deadline for its Chinese owners ByteDance to sell its US subsidiary to non-Chinese buyers loomed.
Also read | U.S. Supreme Court upholds law banning TikTok starting Jan 19 if not sold by its Chinese parent company
TikTok thanked President-elect Donald Trump, who on Sunday said he planned to sign an executive order after his inauguration on Monday to give TikTok’s China-based parent company more time to find an approved buyer before the popular video-sharing platform is subject to a permanent U.S.ban.
He also called in a post on his Truth Social platform for the United States to take part-ownership in TikTok.
The president-elect said he “would like the United States to have a 50% ownership position in a joint venture,” arguing that the app’s value could surge to “hundreds of billions of dollars – maybe trillions.”
In a statement posted on X following Trump’s comments, TikTok said it “is in the process of restoring service.”
“We thank President Trump for providing the necessary clarity and assurance to our service providers that they will face no penalties providing TikTok to over 170 million Americans.”
TikTok goes dark in the U.S ahead of ban
“A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S.,” a pop-up message informed users who opened the TikTok app and tried to scroll through videos on Saturday night. “Unfortunately that means you can’t use TikTok for now.”
The service interruption TikTok instituted hours early caught most users by surprise. Experts had said the law as written did not require TikTok to take down its platform, only for app stores to remove it. Current users had been expected to continue to have access to videos until the app stopped working due to a lack of updates.
“The community on TikTok is like nothing else, so it’s weird to not have that anymore,” content creator Tiffany Watson, 20, said Sunday.
Ms. Watson said she had been in denial about the looming shutdown and with the space time on her hands plans to focus on bolsering her presence on Instagram and YouTube.
“There are still people out there who want beauty content,” Ms. Watson said. The company’s app was removed late Saturday from prominent app stores, including the ones operated by Apple and Google. Apple told customers with its devices that it also took down other apps developed by TikTok’s China-based parent company, including one that some social media influencers had promoted as an alternative.
In upholding the law on Friday, the Supreme Court decided that the risk to national security posed by TikTok’s ties to China overcomes concerns about limiting speech by the app or its 170 million users in the United States.
Mr. Trump’s plan to issue an executive order to spare TikTok on his first day in office reflected the ban’s coincidental timing and the unusual mix of political considerations surrounding a social media platform that first gained popularity with often silly videos featuring dances and music clips.
Despite its own part in getting the nationwide ban enacted, the Biden administration stressed in recent days that it did not intend to implement or enforce the ban before Mr. Trump takes office on Monday.
During his first term in the White House, Mr. Trump issued executive orders in 2020 banning TikTok and the Chinese messaging app WeChat, moves that courts subsequently blocked. When momentum for a ban emerged in Congress last year, however, he opposed the legislation. Mr. Trump has since credited TikTok with helping him win support from young voters in last year’s presidential election.
“We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office. Please stay tuned,” read the pop-up message the app’s users now see under the headline, “Sorry, TikTok isn’t available right now.”
The only option the message gives U.S. users is to close the app or click another option leading them to the platform’s website. There, users see the same message and are given the option to download their data, an action that TikTok previously said may take days to process.
Apple said in a statement on its website that three TikTok apps and eight other ByteDance-created apps were no longer available in the U.S., while visitors to the country might have limited access. The removed apps included video-editing program CapCut, art editing program Hypic and Lemon8, a video-sharing app that includes some of the same features as TikTok.
“Apple is obligated to follow the laws in the jurisdictions where it operates,” the company said.
Apple said the apps would remain on the devices of people who already had them installed, but in-app purchases and new subscriptions no longer were possible and that operating updates to iPhones and iPads might affect the apps’ performance.
In the nine months since Congress passed the sale-or-ban law, no clear buyers emerged, and ByteDance publicly insisted it would not sell TikTok. But Trump said he hoped his administration could facilitate a deal to “save” the app.
TikTok CEO Shou Chew is expected to attend Mr. Trump’s inauguration with a prime seating location.
Mr. Chew posted a video late Saturday thanking Trump for his commitment to work with the company to keep the app available in the U.S. and taking a “strong stand for the First Amendment and against arbitrary censorship.”
Mr. Trump’s choice for national security adviser, Michael Waltz, told CBS News on Sunday that the president-elect discussed TikTok going dark in the U.S. during a weekend call with Chinese President Xi Jinping “and they agreed to work together on this.”
On Saturday, artificial intelligence startup Perplexity AI submitted a proposal to ByteDance to create a new entity that merges Perplexity with TikTok’s U.S. business, according to a person familiar with the matter.
(With inputs from AFP, AP)
Published – January 20, 2025 12:15 am IST
