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TikTok goes dark in US before ban

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TikTok goes dark in US before ban

TikTok went down in the United States on Saturday night, shortly before a federal ban on the Chinese-owned short video app went into effect.

The app was no longer available on Apple’s iOS App Store or Google’s Play Store. The US Congress passed a law in April requiring parent company ByteDance to sell TikTok to a non-Chinese owner or face complete closure. He chose the latter.

TikTok said divestment “simply is not possible: neither commercially, nor technologically, nor legally.” The company maintained that line until the end.

The disappearance of the application has been five years in the making. Donald Trump first proposed banning TikTok in mid-2020 via executive order, which was unsuccessful. Several members of Congress proposed measures that would do the same, but only one passed. The Protecting Americans from Apps Controlled by Foreign Adversaries Act was signed into law and requires TikTok to be sold or banned.

“In the US, a law has been passed prohibiting TikTok. Unfortunately, that means you can’t use TikTok for now. We are lucky that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to restore TikTok once he takes office. Stay tuned,” read a message to users trying to use the app.

TikTok’s lawyer told the high court that the app would “go dark” on January 19. After TikTok disappears from app stores, preventing new downloads and updates, it will gradually become obsolete as long as the ban remains in effect. Without regular maintenance, the smooth functioning of the application will suffer from failures and may become vulnerable to cyber attacks.

Users trying to access TikTok in the US encountered this message late on Saturday. Photograph: Blake Montgomery/The Guardian

TikTok fought the law tooth and nail in court, arguing that blocking an app beloved by so many would violate its right to free speech, a losing argument. It looked like the bill could disappear before being enacted, as did a similar provision in Montana, which banned TikTok within its borders in 2023, the first in the United States to do so. The state law was repealed before it took effect.

Two days before the deadline for ByteDance to sell the popular app, used by 170 million Americans, the US Supreme Court ruled that the law was constitutional and that its provisions should be upheld. Biden said he will leave implementation of the bill to Trump. The White House said in a statement Friday that TikTok “should remain available to Americans, but simply under American ownership.”

In response to the ruling, TikTok boss Shou Chew called on the president-elect to save his app. “On behalf of everyone at TikTok and all of our users across the country, I want to thank President Trump for his commitment to working with us to find a solution that keeps TikTok available in the United States,” he said in a video posted on TikTok. .

Trump attempted to intervene on TikTok’s behalf in its Supreme Court case at the last minute, even though he himself is the father of the ban. He liked the app during his 2024 presidential campaign after finding a large audience there. He will take office on Monday and could order the Justice Department not to enforce the bill, although he said the Supreme Court’s decision should be “respected”. It’s unclear whether he’ll be able to completely bypass the TikTok ban.

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Trump said Saturday that he would “very likely” give TikTok a 90-day reprieve from a possible ban after he takes office on Monday.

“The 90-day extension is something that will probably be done because it is appropriate,” he told NBC. “If I decide to do that, I’ll probably announce it on Monday.”

TikTok users in the US have not defected to YouTube Shorts or Instagram Reels, although both products will likely see a post-ban boost, but to Xiaohongshu, also known as RedNote, a Chinese video-sharing app.

As one user said: “I’d send my DNA to the front door of the Chinese Communist Party before I saw an Instagram reel.”

Reuters contributed reporting

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