TikTok Shuts Down in U.S.: What Happens Next?
The clock has stopped for TikTok.
As it threatened to do, TikTok shut off the video app for U.S. users at about 10:30 p.m. ET on Saturday night. For now, it’s unclear how long TikTok — which is effectively being outlawed by the U.S. government because of its ties to China — will stay down.
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“Sorry, TikTok isn’t available right now,” the message in the app reads when American users open it. “A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S. 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. Please stay tuned!”
The message includes a link to TikTok’s website, which repeats the same text and informs users they can still log in to their account to download their data. In the U.S., TikTok disappeared from Apple’s App Store and the Google Play app store for Android on Saturday evening. ByteDance-owned CapCut, a video-editing app, and social media app Lemon8 also went offline for U.S. users.
The shutdown of the TikTok app in the U.S. — if it continues for an extended period of time — is expected to provide a lift to platforms including Meta’s Instagram, Google’s YouTube (which includes a TikTok-like feature called YouTube Shorts) and Snapchat.
On Friday, TikTok said it would be “forced to go dark” on Jan. 19 unless it received a “definitive statement” from the outgoing Biden administration that the app’s tech partners won’t be penalized under the law, which bans the app in the U.S. as of Sunday unless China-based parent ByteDance divests its stake in the app to a party that is not located in a country deemed a “foreign adversary.”
Earlier Saturday evening, TikTok displayed a message to users that said the ban would “force us to make our services temporarily unavailable. We’re working to restore our service in the U.S. as soon as possible, and we appreciate your support.”
TikTok has informed U.S. employees that they will continue to have their jobs and that its offices will remain open even after the ban goes into effect.
President-elect Donald Trump, in an interview Saturday with NBC News, said he “most likely” would issue a 90-day extension to the Jan. 19 deadline. But it isn’t clear he has the legal authority to do that: The law specifies that to trigger a 90-day extension to the Jan. 19 date, the U.S. president must certify to Congress that “relevant binding legal agreements” are in place for ByteDance to divest its TikTok ownership. There are no known such agreements in place, although several unsolicited offers for TikTok have been floated in recent weeks. ByteDance has indicated that it would not consider a sale of TikTok’s U.S. operations without the app’s content-recommendation algorithm.
Another possible way forward for TikTok: Congress could pass legislation to keep TikTok legal while giving ByteDance more time to secure a deal for its stake. Or Congress, together with the Trump administration, could amend the law — called the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act — to allow ByteDance to retain an ownership position but impose conditions on its U.S. operations that would address the national security risks flagged by lawmakers.
The outgoing Biden administration had previously said it was punting the question of enforcing the TikTok divest-or-ban law to Trump. On Saturday, regarding TikTok’s warning that it would go dark because of the impending ban, a White House rep called the blackout threat a “stunt.”
“We have seen the most recent statement from TikTok. It is a stunt,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said. “We have laid out our position clearly and straightforwardly: actions to implement this law will fall to the next administration. So TikTok and other companies should take up any concerns with them.”
TikTok’s shutdown puts pressure on Trump to find a way to “save” the app for its 170 million American users. Trump, who had unsuccessfully attempted to force ByteDance to sell TikTok to U.S. buyers (also over national security concerns), joined TikTok last summer and attracted more than 14 million followers. “I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok,” Trump said at a press conference last month, citing his belief that the app helped him win younger voters in the presidential election.
The issue of TikTok’s shutdown came to a head after the Supreme Court rejected the appeal by TikTok and ByteDance to halt the law on First Amendment grounds. The court on Jan. 17 ruled in a unanimous opinion that the law doesn’t violate TikTok’s or its creators’ free speech rights and that “Congress has determined that divestiture is necessary to address its well-supported national security concerns regarding TikTok’s data collection practices and relationship with a foreign adversary.”
The law does not explicitly prohibit the use of the TikTok app in the U.S. Rather, it imposes fines of $5,000 per user on companies that distribute or host the TikTok app. Those include Apple, Google and Oracle, which has an agreement to host TikTok’s U.S. user data. Without an ironclad guarantee that TikTok’s partners would not be socked with steep fines, the company opted to pull the app offline for the time being.
American lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have argued that TikTok is a national security threat, on the theory that China’s communist regime could potentially demand access to data on U.S. users or force TikTok to promote Chinese propaganda. TikTok has repeatedly claimed the Chinese government has never made such demands (and that TikTok would not comply with them if they were made) and says 60% of ByteDance’s ownership is represented by global investment firms.
Last year, the TikTok divest-or-ban legislation in the U.S. passed with strong bipartisan support, clearing the House of Representatives by a 360-58 vote and the Senate by 79-18. President Biden signed it into law on April 24.
At a contentious House committee hearing in 2023, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew asserted that forcing ByteDance to divest its ownership stake in the app would not change how TikTok operates. “A change in ownership would not impose any new restrictions on data flows or access,” he said. “All global companies face common challenges that need to be addressed through safeguards and transparency.”
On Friday, following the Supreme Court ruling upholding the divest-or-ban law, Chew thanked Trump in a video message for “his commitment to work with us to find a solution that keeps TikTok available in the United States. This is a strong stand for the First Amendment and against arbitrary censorship.” Chew is scheduled to attend Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration.
Other countries that have banned TikTok include India, which cited security concerns over the app’s Chinese ownership in prohibiting the app in June 2020.
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