TikTok said on Sunday (Jan 19) that it would resume service to US users, hours after the popular video-sharing platform was shut down due to a federal ban, and President-elect Donald Trump said he would try to ban it through the executive personnel suspended the ban.
Trump said he planned to issue an order to give TikTok’s Chinese parent company more time to find an approved buyer before the ban takes full effect. He announced the move on his Truth Social account as millions of U.S. TikTok users woke up to find they no longer had access to the TikTok app or platform.
To comply with the law, Google and Apple removed the app from their digital stores. The law, passed in April with broad bipartisan support, allows for steep fines.
The company that operates TikTok in the United States said in a post on face any penalties.
Shortly after TikTok issued its statement, some users reported that the app was back up and running, while TikTok’s website appeared to be working for at least some people. Even after TikTok was relaunched, it was still unavailable for download in the Apple and Google app stores. Neither Apple nor Google responded to messages seeking comment on Sunday.
The law that takes effect on Sunday requires ByteDance to cut ties with the platform’s U.S. operations as the app’s Chinese roots raise national security concerns. However, the statute gives the sitting president the power to extend for 90 days if a viable sale is underway.
Despite some offers from investors, ByteDance previously said it would not sell. Trump said his order would “extend the time before the legal ban takes effect” and “confirm that any company that helped prevent TikTok from shutting down prior to my order will not be held liable.”
“Americans deserve to see our exciting inauguration on Monday, along with other events and conversations,” Trump wrote.
It’s unclear what Trump’s promised action will look like from a legal perspective since the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously upheld the ban on Friday (Jan. 17) and the regulations took effect one day before Trump returns to the White House.
Some lawmakers who voted for the sales ban law, including some of Trump’s fellow Republicans, still support the bill. Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton warned companies on Sunday not to provide TikTok with the technical support it needs to operate, as it has done in the past.
“Under the law, any company that hosts, distributes, services or otherwise facilitates Communist Party-controlled TikTok could face hundreds of billions of dollars in devastating liability, not only from the (Department of Justice) but also under securities laws, shareholder lawsuits and Law, Cotton wrote on X, “Think about it. “
TikTok’s sporadic availability comes after the Supreme Court ruled that TikTok’s ties to China pose risks to national security that outweigh concerns about limiting speech on the app or its millions of U.S. users.
As of Saturday evening, when TikTok users in the United States tried to watch or post videos on the platform, they saw a pop-up message below the title: “Sorry, TikTok is currently unavailable.”
“The United States has enacted a law banning TikTok,” the source said. “Unfortunately, this means you can’t use TikTok now.”
TikTok surprised many users by disrupting service a few hours early. Experts said that statutory law does not require TikTok to be removed from the platform, only that it be removed from the app store. Current users are expected to continue accessing the videos until a lack of updates causes the app to stop working.
“The community on TikTok is so different than other communities, so it’s weird that there isn’t one anymore,” 20-year-old content creator Tiffany Watson said Sunday.
Watson said she has been in denial about the impending government shutdown and with the time on her hands, she plans to focus on growing her presence on Instagram and YouTube.
“There are still people who want beauty content,” Watson said.
The company’s apps were also removed from the prominent app store on Saturday evening. Apple told customers of its devices that it had also removed other ByteDance-developed apps. These include Lemon8 (which some influencers promote as a TikTok alternative), popular video editing app CapCut and photo editor Hypic.
“Apple is obligated to comply with the laws of the jurisdictions in which it operates,” the company said.
Trump’s plan to ease TikTok on his first day in office reflects the timing of the ban and the unusual political considerations surrounding the social media platform, which initially became popular for posting silly videos of dance and music clips. .
During his first presidential term, Trump issued an executive order in 2020 banning TikTok and Chinese messaging app WeChat, a move that was later blocked by courts. However, when momentum emerged in Congress last year to enact a ban, he opposed the legislation. Trump has since credited TikTok with helping him win over young voters in last year’s presidential election.
While the Biden administration played its role in enacting the nationwide ban, it has emphasized in recent days that it does not plan to implement or enforce it before Trump takes office on Monday.
In the nine months since Congress passed the “sell or ban” law, no clear buyer has emerged, and ByteDance has publicly insisted that TikTok will not be sold. But Trump said he hoped his administration could broker a deal to “save” the app.
TikTok CEO Shou Chew is expected to attend Trump’s inauguration in a prime location.
Later on Saturday, Zhou posted a video thanking Trump for pledging to work with the company to keep the app available in the United States and for “strongly supporting the First Amendment and opposing arbitrary censorship.”
Michael Waltz, Trump’s pick for national security adviser, told CBS News on Sunday that the president-elect discussed TikTok’s shutdown in the United States during a call with Chinese President Xi Jinping over the weekend, “They Agree to cooperate on this.”
Artificial intelligence startup Perplexity AI submitted a proposal to ByteDance on Saturday to create a new entity that would merge Perplexity with TikTok’s U.S. operations, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Perplexity isn’t asking to buy into Bytedance’s algorithm, which serves videos based on TikTok users’ interests and made the platform a phenomenon.
Other investors have also set their sights on TikTok. Shark Tank Star Kevin O’Leary recently told a consortium of investors that he and billionaire Frank McCourt gave ByteDance $20 billion in cash. Trump’s former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin also said last year that he was forming an investor group to acquire TikTok.
In Washington, lawmakers and government officials have long expressed concerns about TikTok, warning that the algorithms that drive what users see are vulnerable to manipulation by Chinese authorities. But so far, the United States has not publicly provided evidence that TikTok handed over user data to Chinese authorities or modified its algorithms to benefit China.
