The ban placed on TikTok has left Millions of its users in the United States stranded as they no longer able to watch videos on the social media platform as a federal law on the popular app takes effect.
Enacting the law saw TikTok app being removed from prominent app stores, including the ones operated by Apple and Google, on Saturday evening, while its website told users that the short-form video platform was no longer available. The blackout began on Saturday evening, just hours before the law took effect.
When users opened the TikTok app on Saturday, they encountered a pop-up message that said “Sorry, TikTok isn’t available right now” and prevented them from scrolling on videos.
“A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S.,” the message said. “Unfortunately that means you can’t use TikTok for now.”
“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 message continued, in reference to President-elect Donald Trump’s pledge to “save” the platform. The company told its users to stay tuned.
The only option the message gives to U.S. users is to close the app, or click another option that leads them to the platform’s website. There, users are shown the same message and given the option to download their data, an option TikTok previously said may take days to process.
In an interview with NBC News on Saturday, President-elect Donald Trump said he was thinking about giving TikTok a 90-day extension that would allow them to continue operating. If such an extension happens, Trump — who once favored a TikTok ban — said it would “probably” be announced Monday, the day that he is sworn in as president. TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew is expected to attend Trump’s inauguration with a prime seating location.
In Washington, lawmakers and administration officials have long raised concerns about the app, which they see as a national security threat due to its Chinese ownership. TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a technology company based in Beijing that operates the well-known video editing app CapCut and Lemon8 — both of which were also unavailable for service Saturday evening.
The federal law required ByteDance to cut ties with TikTok by Sunday or face a nationwide ban. The statute was passed by Congress in April after it was included as part of a high-priority $95 billion package that provided foreign aid to Ukraine and Israel. President Joe Biden quickly signed it, and then the law was quickly sued by TikTok and ByteDance on First Amendment grounds.
While defending the law in court, the Biden administration argued it was concerned about TikTok collecting vast swaths of U.S. user data that could fall into the hands of the Chinese government through coercion.
Officials have also warned the algorithm that fuels what users see on the app is vulnerable to manipulation by Chinese authorities, who can use it to shape content on the platform in a way that’s difficult to detect. But to date, the U.S. has not publicly provided evidence of TikTok handing user data to Chinese authorities or tinkering with its algorithm to benefit Chinese interests.
Before that announcement went out, TikTok had said in another message to users that its service would be “temporarily unavailable” and told them its working to restore its U.S. service “as soon as possible.” But how long the platform will remain dark is unclear.
