TikTok ceased working in the US at 10:29 p.m. ET Saturday night, 91 minutes before a bipartisan law was slated to go into effect requiring its current owner Bytedance divest or be effectively banned.
The platform’s support department had warned Friday night that without any clarification from the Biden administration about potential legal troubles for its third-party partners, the app would cease to function. A message flashed to users just before 10:30 that indicated President-elect Donald Trump was the platform’s only hope in the future: Sorry, TikTok isn’t available right now 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!
TikTok was also unavailable in US app stores as of 11 p.m. ET.
Trump said Saturday during an interview with NBC’s Kristen Welker he would “most likely” seek to save the service for American users after his inauguration on Monday.
“I think that would be, certainly, an option that we look at,” Trump told Welker. “The 90-day extension is something that will be most likely done, because it’s appropriate. You know, it’s appropriate. We have to look at it carefully. It’s a very big situation. If I decide to do that, I’ll probably announce it on Monday.”
TikTok’s owner – Beijing-based ByteDance – had until Sunday to divest from TikTok or to see it shut down in the US.
The company chose the latter.
A bipartisan bill signed into law last year gave the company until Jan. 19 to sell off TikTok. The Biden administration punted saving it to the Trump administration in separate statements on Friday and Saturday.
Attorney General Merrick Garland celebrated the app’s apparent demise Friday afternoon after the Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that the TikTok ban was constitutional:
The Court’s decision enables the Justice Department to prevent the Chinese government from weaponizing TikTok to undermine America’s national security. Authoritarian regimes should not have unfettered access to millions of Americans’ sensitive data. The Court’s decision affirms that this Act protects the national security of the United States in a manner that is consistent with the Constitution.
