Last night, TikTok went down for millions of US users just before a ban of the app took effect across the country.
Quick recap: In April of last year, the US Senate passed a bill stating that TikTok would be banned across the country due to national security concerns — unless the Chinese company ByteDance sold its stake in the app. Current US President Joe Biden swiftly signed it into law the day after.
On Friday, the US Supreme Court ruled that the ban could be upheld, and TikTok issued their own statement yesterday claiming that the app would effectively “go dark” for US users starting Jan. 19.
Last night — just hours before the ban was officially supposed to take place — TikTok did just that. “Sorry, TikTok isn’t available right now,” a message read. “A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the US. Unfortunately, that means you can’t use TikTok for now.”
About that last bit — outgoing US President Joe Biden had previously signaled that he would effectively punt a decision as to whether the ban is enacted to Trump, leaving the fate of the app in his hands.
In the early hours of this morning, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that he planned to issue an executive order on Monday — after his inauguration, presumably — to “extend the period of time before” the ban takes effect. He also claimed that the order wouldn’t penalize any company that “helped keep TikTok from going dark before my order.”
He also floated the notion of the US taking a 50% ownership stake in the platform. “By doing this, we save TikTok, keep it in good hands and allow it to say up,” he wrote. “Without U.S. approval, there is no Tik Tok. With our approval, it is worth hundreds of billions of dollars – maybe trillions.”
