The TikTok ban takes effect in the US

NEW YORK (AP) – Millions of TikTok users in the United States are no longer able to watch videos the social media platform as a federal ban on the wildly popular app goes into effect.

The company’s app was pulled from prominent app stores, including those run by Apple and Google, on Saturday night, while its website told users the short-form video platform was no longer available. The blackout began just hours before the law came into effect.

Users who opened the TikTok app on Saturday encountered a pop-up message that prevented them from scrolling videos, saying, “Sorry, TikTok is not available right now.”

“A law banning TikTok has been passed in the United States,” the announcement read. “Unfortunately, this 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 when he takes office,” the statement continued, referring to President-elect Donald Trump’s pledge to “save” the platform . The company asked its users to be informed.

The only option the message gives to US users is to close the app or click another option that takes them to the platform’s website. There, users are shown the same message and given the option to download their data, an action that TikTok previously said could take days to process.

Before the announcement went out, TikTok said in another message to users that its service would be “temporarily unavailable” and the company was working to restore its US service “as soon as possible.” But how long the platform will remain dark is unclear.

Apple said in a statement on its website that the TikTok and ByteDance apps were no longer available in the United States, while visitors to the country could have limited access. “Apple is committed to following the laws of the jurisdictions in which it operates,” the company said.

“If you already have these apps installed on your device, they will remain on your device. However, they cannot be re-downloaded if deleted or restored if you move to a new device. In-app purchases and new subscriptions are no longer possible,” said the statement, adding that the change may affect performance, security and compatibility with future versions of iOS and iPadOS.

TikTok CEO Shou Chew posted a video thanking Trump for his commitment to working with the company to keep the app available in the United States and a “strong stance for the First Amendment and against arbitrary censorship.”

“We are grateful and excited to have the support of a president who truly understands our platform. One who has used speech to express his own thoughts and perspectives, connect with the world and generate more than 60 billion views of his content in the process,” Chew said.

In an interview with NBC News on Saturday, President Donald Trump said he was considering giving TikTok a 90-day extension that would allow them to continue operating. If such an extension happens, Trump – who once advocated a TikTok ban – said it would “probably” be announced on Monday, the day he is sworn in as president. TikTok CEO Shou Chew is expected to attend Trump’s inauguration with a first class seat.

In Washington, lawmakers and administration officials have long expressed concern about the app, which they see as a national security threat because of its Chinese ownership. TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a Beijing-based technology company that operates well-known video editing app CapCut and Lemon8, both of which were also unavailable for service on Saturday night.

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 itand then quickly sued TikTok and ByteDance on First Amendment grounds.

While defending the law in court, the Biden administration claimed it was concerned that TikTok was collecting large chunks of US user data that could fall into the hands of the Chinese government through coercion.

Officials have also warned that the algorithm that fuels what users see on the app is vulnerable to manipulation by Chinese authorities, who could use it to shape content on the platform in ways that are hard to detect. But to date, the United States has not publicly presented evidence that TikTok has handed over user data to Chinese authorities or tampered with its algorithm to benefit Chinese interests.

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously on Friday that the national security risks posed by TikTok’s ties to China outweigh concerns about restricting speech by the app or its 170 million US users.

After TikTok’s service began going dark, some in China slammed the US, accusing it of suppressing the popular app. In a post on the Chinese social media platform Weibo, Hu Xijin, a former editor-in-chief of the Chinese Communist Party-run Global Times newspaper, said, “TikTok’s announcement to suspend services in America marks the darkest moment in the development of the Internet.”

“A country that claims to have the most freedom of speech has carried out the most brutal suppression of an Internet application,” said Hu, who is now a political commentator. TikTok does not operate in China, where ByteDance instead offers Douyin, the Chinese sibling of TikTok that follows Beijing’s strict censorship rules.

After the court order, both White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said the Biden administration would leave implementation of the law to President-elect Donald Trump, as his inauguration falls the day after the ban takes effect.

But TikTok said Friday night that it “will be forced to go dark” if the administration does not make a “definitive statement” to the companies, such as Apple, Google and Oracle, that provide its service in the United States

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called TikTok’s demand a “stunt” and said there was no reason for TikTok or other companies “to take action in the next few days before the Trump administration takes office. ” But despite these statements from the administration, there was confusion about what would happen until TikTok began blocking its service.

By law, mobile app stores are barred from offering TikTok, and internet hosting services are prohibited from providing the service to US users. Violators can incur fines of up to $5,000 for each user who continues to access TikTok, meaning that the penalties that companies may face if they continue to offer TikTok can be substantial.

As of this writing, experts said the law does not require TikTok to remove its platform, so it is unclear whether the company voluntarily shut it down or was unable to keep the service alive after losing access support from its technology providers. The company did not respond to questions sent this week about its plans.

The statue allows the sitting president to extend the deadline by 90 days if a sale is underway. But no clear buyers have emerged, and ByteDance has previously said it will not sell TikTok.

On Saturday, artificial intelligence startup Perplexity AI submitted a proposal to ByteDance to create a new entity that merges Perplexity with TikTok’s US business, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Perplexity is not asking to buy the ByteDance algorithm that feeds TikTok users videos based on their interests and has made the platform such a phenomenon.

Other investors have also looked at TikTok. “Shark Tank” star Kevin O’Leary recently said a consortium of investors he and billionaire Frank McCourt put together offered ByteDance $20 billion in cash. Trump’s Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin also said last year that he was putting together an investor group to buy TikTok.

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Associated Press writer Kanis Leung contributed to this story from Hong Kong.