In a stunning about-face, the video-sharing app TikTok has gone dark in the United States after a long legal and political fight. The shutdown happened just hours before a law banning the platform was supposed to go into effect, which affects some 170 million users. A message then came up as users tried accessing the app Saturday night saying there was now a law that has banned TikTok and therefore, “you can’t use TikTok for now.”
In a notice to its users, TikTok said, “We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office.” The move came one day after the app threatened to “go dark” in case the outgoing Biden administration did not give assurances against the enforcement of the ban.
Meanwhile, incoming President Donald Trump said that he would “most likely” give the app a 90-day reprieve from the ban once he takes office on Monday. It was a landmark moment, the first time any social media platform the size of TikTok had ever completely shut down in the U.S., with its future-when or if it might return to the country-very much up in the air. The application has come under scrutiny over its parent company, ByteDance, being headquartered in China.
Reports show that TikTok suddenly disappeared from both Apple and Google’s app stores, with multiple users also noting its unavailability on the web. Just hours before the shutdown, the Biden administration labeled TikTok’s threat to go offline as a “stunt,” transferring the responsibility of enforcing the law to the incoming Trump administration.
Besides this, TikTok also let its employees know that the word of its shutdown has reached them and added that President Trump is open to finding a solution to get the app up and running in the U.S. again as soon as possible. CapCut, another popular app from ByteDance, was also shut down with a warning message. The platforms began blocking users starting at around 10:30 PM local time.
The ban-or-divest law, which took effect Sunday, amounts to a ban on TikTok unless ByteDance agrees to divest a significant stake in the company. With the deadline looming, ByteDance has given little indication it plans to sell, but TikTok has taken the matter to the Supreme Court, which refused to overturn the ban.
