TikTok offline in US after Supreme Court upholds ban: NPR

The TikTok logo is displayed on a mobile phone with an American flag in the background for illustration photo in Krakow, Poland, on January 17.

Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images

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Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images

TikTok is no longer available to users in the United States, the result of a controversial law that forces the popular platform offline unless it separates from its China-based owner, ByteDance.

When users tried to open the app around 10:35 PM ET, a message appeared: “Sorry, TikTok is not available right now,” it read. “A law banning TikTok has been passed in the U.S. Unfortunately, this means you can’t use TikTok for now.”

The message then said that President-elect Donald Trump has promised to “work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok when he takes office. Please stay tuned!”

Around the same time, TikTok also stopped appearing in the Apple and Google Play app stores, preventing the app from being downloaded and removing the app from critical software updates.

It is the first time in history that the US government has banned a very popular social media network.

The pop-up message that millions of users across the US received when they tried to open TikTok on Saturday night, hours before a banning law was set to take effect.

Bobby Allyn/NPR

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Bobby Allyn/NPR

However, the TikTok ban may be short-lived. Trump said Saturday that he will “most likely” give the app a 90-day reprieve when he takes office on Monday.

Such an expansion is permitted under the law, although it would require a legally binding certification to Congress that steps toward divesting ByteDance are underway.

The law, which was recently upheld by the Supreme Court, ordered Apple and Google to remove the service from app stores. It also required web hosting companies, including TikTok’s back-end cloud provider, Oracle, to stop supporting the app or face fines that could reach billions of dollars.

It remains to be seen how long the service will remain offline, but the development has drawn criticism from free-speech advocates, who said it amounts to the kind of government censorship the US often condemns on the global stage.

The free speech group PEN America attacked the Supreme Court’s decision. “Restricting access to foreign media is a hallmark of repressive governments, and we should always be vigilant when national security is invoked to silence speech,” the advocacy group said in a statement Friday.

The prospect of a TikTok shutdown in the US has been discussed for more than four years, but it has often been blocked by courts or dissolved amid political wrangling.

However, in April 2024, Congress passed a ban with overwhelming bipartisan support. Lawmakers fear that TikTok’s owner ByteDance could be manipulated by the Chinese government — exposing Americans’ data and content feeds to the whims of an adversary regime.

Earlier this month, TikTok argued to the Supreme Court that the law represents an unprecedented crackdown on free speech. Still, in an unsigned unanimous decision, the Supreme Court ruled that “divestment is necessary” to address lawmakers’ fears about China. Therefore, the court ruled, Congress acted legally when it voted to crack down on the hugely popular video app.

TikTok now faces an uncertain path forward.

President-elect Donald Trump issued a statement after the Supreme Court ruling, saying the decision should be respected and that his incoming administration would need more time to review the ruling. Trump has promised to keep TikTok alive in the US, but how he can execute on that promise remains unclear.

One option would be to revive a national security agreement known as Project Texas, which TikTok says it has spent more than $2 billion implementing. The plan aims to shield any potential influence from Beijing by placing Austin-based Oracle as a kind of supervisor over the data exchanged between ByteDance and TikTok. It also allows for third-party audits of TikTok’s content recommendation algorithm. If TikTok is found to have violated the agreement, the agreement includes a “kill switch” where federal officials could shut down TikTok.

TikTok proposed the plan to the Biden administration, which at the eleventh hour walked away from the deal without ever saying why, according to court papers filed in TikTok’s lawsuit against the administration over the divestment or prohibition law.

Some longtime TikTok watchers say Trump may renew those talks, ruling that it represents “qualified divestment” — meaning an arrangement through which TikTok is sufficiently distanced from ByteDance.

This decision can be made solely at the discretion of the President and his administration. That gives Trump the final word on TikTok’s future in the US. Despite promising to decommission the app during his first term, he has recently said he is likely to give it a 90-day reprieve when he takes office.