CNN
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TikTok went offline in the United States on Saturday night, two hours before the ban was scheduled to go into effect. The unusual power outage left 170 million Americans without access to one of the world’s most popular social media apps.
Visitors to the app were shown a message similar to the following: “Sorry, TikTok is currently unavailable. A law has been enacted in the United States that bans TikTok. Unfortunately, that means you can’t use TikTok at this time.”
TikTok’s move comes after the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday upheld a ban passed with broad bipartisan support in Congress and signed into law by President Joe Biden in April. It was done. The law prohibits U.S. companies from hosting or providing content on Chinese-owned social media platforms unless they sell themselves to buyers in the United States or its allies.
But TikTok may not be gone for long. The company indicated it could return as soon as Monday, perhaps.
“We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated he is willing to work with us on a solution to bring TikTok back once he takes office,” the company said in a pop-up message to users who opened the app starting late Saturday night. Posted. “stay tuned!”
President-elect Trump said on Monday that he will “most likely extend” the ban on TikTok for 90 days after taking office, adding that he has not yet made a final decision in a phone interview with NBC News on Saturday.
“I think that would certainly be an option that we would consider. A 90-day extension is appropriate, so it’s probably going to happen. Yeah, that’s appropriate. We’ll have to look at it very closely. It’s a huge situation,” Trump said in an interview.
“If we decide to do that, we’ll probably make an announcement on Monday,” he added.
TikTok’s outage, and hints that it may soon restore service, are the latest developments in a saga that has been going on for months, leaving the app’s fate up in the air.
The app has also disappeared from Apple’s App Store and Google Play Store. And other apps owned by TikTok’s parent company ByteDance, including CapCut, displayed similar messages Saturday night.
Lawmakers said TikTok’s ties to China and access to large amounts of data pose a threat to national security.
Many US users told CNN they were preparing for the app’s demise. That includes influencers and other small businesses who say they rely on the platform for a living. Still, they said they hoped the app could be saved in some way.
But the Supreme Court’s decision dashed hopes for last-minute judicial assistance.
Some companies that operate app stores or computer servers are said to be concerned that they could be held liable if they violate the ban. Those service providers have promised to stop offering the apps to avoid legal repercussions, a person familiar with the discussions between the companies told CNN.
Meanwhile, Trump, who first warned of the dangers of TikTok five years ago, has now cast himself as the app’s savior. Earlier this month, he posted statistics about his popularity on TikTok on his Truth Social account and asked, “Why do you want to kill TikTok?”
TikTok CEO Hsu Chu met with President Trump at his Mar-a-Lago home in the weeks leading up to the ban and plans to attend Trump’s inauguration on Monday. is.
TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment late Saturday.
A law passed last year allows the president to delay the ban for 90 days, but requires evidence that the parties coordinating the sale of TikTok to a U.S.-owned company have made significant progress.
However, ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, has turned away potential buyers. The company cites its popularity among U.S. users and value to small businesses across the country as it struggles to stay online without changing ownership.
After the Supreme Court ruled 9-0 in favor of the ban, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre indicated the administration would not implement the law in Biden’s final days in office.
Because of the federal holiday weekend and Inauguration Day, “it is up to the incoming administration to take action to enforce the law,” she said.
But TikTok wasn’t happy with that statement. Some service providers, including Google and Apple, which would face steep fines for allowing the U.S. to access TikTok if the ban goes into effect, have decided to take advantage of the law starting Sunday, according to people familiar with the matter. The company reportedly told TikTok that it believed it would make its company vulnerable.
A person close to TikTok said “multiple critical service providers” had indicated to TikTok that they would no longer provide the app or its data, resulting in the app being taken offline. Service providers cited concerns that the ban would go into effect starting Sunday, despite the Biden administration’s stance to the contrary.
So TikTok took steps to shut down the app, at least for now.
The move, and the pop-up naming Trump, could put further pressure on the president-elect to negotiate a solution in the coming days and weeks.
TikTok employees were also told by the company on Saturday that the situation was “unfortunate” but that they were working on a solution.
“We know this is disappointing not only as an employee but also as a user. However, we are fortunate that President Trump intends to work with us on a solution to bring TikTok back once he takes office. Please know that our team is working tirelessly to bring the app back to the US as soon as possible,” read a message to employees.
A White House official reiterated to CNN that there will be no fines from the Biden administration related to keeping TikTok active on Sunday.
But at the same time, the bill passed with strong support from both parties, so some Biden officials are content to let TikTok go dark for a day.
Biden told reporters Friday that the decision “will be made by the president-elect anyway.”
The White House on Saturday criticized TikTok’s warning about going dark, calling it a “stunt.”
“I see no reason for TikTok or any other company to take action in the days leading up to the Trump administration’s inauguration on Monday,” Jean-Pierre said. “We have stated our position clearly and openly, and it will be up to the next administration to take action to implement this law. TikTok and other companies should therefore take any and all concerns to heart.”
A TikTok spokesperson did not immediately respond to the White House statement.
The company said it expects service providers, including companies that run servers full of videos, to restrict access to the app starting at 12:01 a.m. ET on Sunday.
The most popular free apps in the Apple and Google app stores over the past week have been apps like TikTok, two of which are also owned by Chinese companies. One of them, photo-sharing app Lemon8, is owned by ByteDance, as is TikTok. However, Lemon8 may suffer the same fate as TikTok in the future.
Given President Trump’s public statements regarding TikTok, the outage may not last long.
President Trump is said to be considering issuing an executive order that would effectively suspend the ban and give him time to find a long-term solution.
But he will face pressure from many directions. Some Republican senators, including Missouri’s Josh Hawley and Arkansas’ Tom Cotton, remain strong supporters of a ban.
“ByteDance and its Chinese communists had nine months to sell TikTok by Sunday’s deadline,” Cotton wrote in X. “The very fact that communist China is refusing permission to sell it reveals exactly what TikTok is: a communist spy app.”
Richard Greenfield, an analyst at LightShed Partners who has been following the TikTok story for years, predicts that TikTok will ultimately stay online in the United States.
On Saturday, San Francisco-based AI search engine startup Perplexity AI confirmed to CNN that it has made a bid to ByteDance to merge with TikTok.
