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Tik Tok application icon on iPhone 11 pro max screen in hand and

TikTok shuts down pending outcome of action blocking operations in America.

Millions of TikTok users in the United States can no longer watch videos on the social media platform, as a federal ban on the immensely popular app has taken effect.

On Saturday evening, the company’s app was removed from prominent app stores, including those operated by Apple and Google. Its website also informed users that the short-form video platform was no longer available. The blackout began just hours before the law took effect.

Users opening the TikTok app on Saturday encountered a pop-up message preventing them from scrolling videos: “Sorry, TikTok isn’t available right now.”

“A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S.,” the message said. “Unfortunately, that means you can’t use TikTok for now.”

“We are fortunate that President Donald Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office,” the notice continued, referencing President-elect Trump’s pledge to “save” the platform. The company told its users to stay tuned.

The message only allows U.S. users to close the app or click another option that leads them to the platform’s website. There, users are shown the same message and allowed to download their data, an action TikTok previously said may take days to process.

Before the announcement, TikTok sent users another message stating that its service would be “temporarily unavailable” and that the company was working to restore its U.S. service “as soon as possible.” However, it is unclear how long the platform will remain dark.

Apple said on its website that TikTok and ByteDance apps were no longer available in the U.S., while visitors to the country could have limited access. “Apple is obligated to follow the laws in the jurisdictions where it operates,” the company said.

“If you already have these apps installed on your device, they will remain on your device. But they can’t be redownloaded if deleted or restored if you move to a new device. In-app purchases and new subscriptions are no longer possible,” the statement said, adding that the change could impact performance, security and compatibility with future versions of iOS and iPadOS.

TikTok CEO Shou Chew posted a video thanking Trump for his commitment to work with the company to keep the app available in the U.S. and for a “strong stand for the First Amendment and against arbitrary censorship.”

“We are grateful and pleased to have the support of a president who truly understands our platform. One who has used talk to express his own thoughts and perspectives, connecting with the world and generating more than 60 billion views of his content in the process,” Chew said.

In an interview with NBC News on Saturday, Trump said he was thinking about giving TikTok a 90-day extension that would allow them to continue operating. If such an extension happens, Trump — who once favored a TikTok ban — said it would “probably” be announced Monday, the day that he is sworn in as president. Chew is expected to attend Trump’s inauguration with a prime seating location.

In Washington, lawmakers and administration officials have long raised concerns about the app, which they see as a national security threat due to its Chinese ownership. TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a technology company based in Beijing that operates the well-known video editing apps CapCut and Lemon8. Both apps were also unavailable for service on Saturday evening.

The federal law required ByteDance to cut ties with TikTok by Sunday or face a nationwide ban. Congress passed the statute in April after it was included in a high-priority $95 billion package that provided foreign aid to Ukraine and Israel. President Joe Biden quickly signed it, and then TikTok and ByteDance quickly sued on First Amendment grounds.

While defending the law in court, the Biden administration argued that it was concerned that TikTok was collecting vast swaths of U.S. user data that could, through coercion, fall into the hands of the Chinese government.

Officials have also warned the algorithm that fuels what users see on the app is vulnerable to manipulation by Chinese authorities, who can use it to shape content on the platform in a way that’s difficult to detect. But to date, the U.S. has not publicly provided evidence of TikTok handing user data to Chinese authorities or tinkering with its algorithm to benefit Chinese interests.

On Friday, the Supreme Court unanimously 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.

After TikTok’s service started going dark, some in China slammed the U.S. and accused it of suppressing the popular app. In a post on the Chinese social media platform Weibo, Hu Xijin, a former editor-in-chief for the Chinese Communist Party-run newspaper Global Times, said, “TikTok’s announcement to halt services in America marks the darkest moment in the development of the internet.”

“A country that claims to have the most freedom of speech has carried out the most brutal suppression of an internet application,” said Hu, who is now a political commentator. TikTok does not operate in China, where ByteDance instead offers Douyin, the Chinese sibling of TikTok that follows Beijing’s strict censorship rules.

After the court ruling, both White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said the Biden administration would leave the law’s implementation to President-elect Donald Trump, given that his inauguration falls the day after the ban takes effect.

However, TikTok said on Friday evening that it would “be forced to go dark” if the administration didn’t provide a “definitive statement” to companies like Apple, Google, and Oracle, which deliver its service in the U.S.

Jean-Pierre called TikTok’s demand a “stunt” and said there was no reason for TikTok or other companies “to take actions in the next few days before the Trump administration takes office.” But despite the administration’s statements, confusion lingered about what would happen until TikTok began blocking its service.

Under the law, mobile app stores are prohibited from offering TikTok, and internet hosting services are prohibited from being delivered to American users. Violators could incur fines of up to $5,000 for each user who continues to access TikTok, meaning the penalties the companies could face if they continue offering TikTok could total a large sum.

As written, experts say the law does not require TikTok to shut down its platform. Therefore, it’s unclear if the company voluntarily shut it down or could not continue the service after losing access to support from its tech providers. The company did not respond to questions about its plans this week.

The statute allows the sitting president to extend the deadline by 90 days if a sale is in progress. But no clear buyers have emerged, and ByteDance has previously said it won’t sell TikTok.

According to a person familiar with the matter, artificial intelligence startup Perplexity AI submitted a proposal to ByteDance on Saturday to create a new entity that merges Perplexity with TikTok’s U.S. business.

Perplexity is not asking to purchase the ByteDance algorithm that feeds TikTok user’s videos based on their interests and has made the platform such a phenomenon.

Other investors have also been eyeing TikTok. “Shark Tank” star Kevin O’Leary recently said a consortium of investors that he and billionaire Frank McCourt put together offered ByteDance $20 billion in cash. Trump’s Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin also said last year that he was putting together an investor group to buy TikTok.

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Republished with permission of The Associated Press.

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17 comments

Peachy
January 19, 2025 at 8:29 am

Where will all the stripper girls go now?
- forsaken
  January 19, 2025 at 8:56 am
  
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- JD
  January 19, 2025 at 11:55 am
  
  Only Fans with YouTube and Facebook reels as feeder traffic.
THE HIGHLY TRUSTED & BELOVED EARL PITTS AMERICAN
January 19, 2025 at 9:25 am

Good Morn ‘Ting Dook 4 BrainsTick Tock users in The USA,
QUESTION:
Do the Chinky Chinky Chinese allow their OWN CITIZENS over there in Chinky Chinky China Land to use Tick Tock?
ANSWER:
No.
Just thought you Dook 4 BrainsTick Tock users in The USA should know that “Factoid of Sage Truth, Justice, and The American Way”. And most of all you Dook 4 BrainsTick Tock users in The USA Really Need to hear it from, THE HIGHLY TRUSTED & BELOVED EARL PITTS AMERICAN.
Thank you, Dook 4 BrainsTick Tock users in The USA,
THE HIGHLY TRUSTED & BELOVED EARL PITTS AMERICAN
- JD
  January 19, 2025 at 9:53 am
  
  Thanks Earl I’m so angry at 8arak, J0E, and Kamall@ for not telling us Tick Tock was banned in China.
  Earl I’m sorry I was mean to you and hereby renounce my past leftist ways.
  Can we be friends?
  Thanks JD
  - THE HIGHLY TRUSTED & BELOVED EARL PITTS AMERICAN
    January 19, 2025 at 10:15 am
    
    Of course we can be Bestys, JD,
    You know that I, THE HIGHLY TRUSTED & BELOVED EARL PITTS AMERICAN, am not one to hold a grudge.
    We can go hunting and fishing and chaseing some of Florida’s finest pole dancers together.
    Thanks my new Besty, JD,
    THE HIGHLY TRUSTED & BELOVED EARL PITTS AMERICAN
    - JD
      January 19, 2025 at 11:54 am
      
      Don’t use my moniker again Shitts. Remember this is just a WordPress site. Security isn’t the best.
      
      And sure we can be besty’s as long as you remember I am rarely wrong and the moral one.
      - THE HIGHLY TRUSTED & BELOVED EARL PITTS AMERICAN
        January 19, 2025 at 12:34 pm
        
        Thank you, my New Besty, JD, I, THE HIGHLY TRUSTED & BELOVED EARL PITTS AMERICAN, am so proud of you for casting aside your former Leftist ways!!!
        Your Newest & Bestest Besty, THE HIGHLY TRUSTED & BELOVED EARL PITTS AMERICAN
        *everyone is henceforth required to be nice to my new besty, JD*
      - Peachy
        January 19, 2025 at 12:40 pm
        
        Rarely wrong eh? How about this weeks winning lottery numbers? Who will be in the Super Bowl? Who will win the national championship game tomorrow night and what will be the final score?
      - JD
        January 19, 2025 at 1:25 pm
        
        Peachy as long as I don’t answer your specific questions I’m not wrong. Apparently you don’t know how the game is played.
      - Peachy
        January 19, 2025 at 2:13 pm
        
        Democrat arrogance. Love it. Do you like apples JD? Turn on the tv and look at the thousands standing in poor weather conditions to see 47 at the rally. How bout them apples? Ding Dong. The power to the hologram is being removed and four years of piss poor leadership is coming to an end. Rejoice!
      - JD
        January 19, 2025 at 5:27 pm
        
        Peachy, again, I am an NPA due to the arrogance of the BananaRepublicans that I lean what looks left (and is really center). The only reason Dumpf wants TikTok is because his Russian cohorts can watch his piss-poor leadership. Remember Biden’s not in the bottom 5 presidents. But 45 is.
ScienceBLVR
January 19, 2025 at 9:36 am

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the sign said, “The words of the prophets
Are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls
And whispered in the sounds of silence.
- U.N. Bleeber
  January 19, 2025 at 10:56 am
  
  While I certainly encourage an appreciation of some of the finest American poetry of the last century, in part because it represents a level of literacy that is utterly beyond the grasp of most 21st Century writers, I must say I do not get your point.
PeterH
January 19, 2025 at 11:05 am

67% of Americans have never used Tic Tok! We have better ways to engage in the world around us.
Peachy
January 19, 2025 at 1:12 pm

Strippers rejoice. Tik Tok back online.
Jesse
January 19, 2025 at 2:36 pm

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