The clock has stopped for TikTok.
As it had threatened to do, TikTok shut off the video app for U.S. users at about 10:30 p.m. ET on Saturday night. And right now, it’s unclear how long TikTok will stay down.
“Sorry, TikTok isn’t available right now,” the message in the app reads when 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 also disappeared from Apple’s App Store and the Google Play app store for Android on Saturday evening. CapCut, a video-editing app owned by ByteDance, 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.”
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 enact a divestment of its TikTok ownership. There are no known such agreements in place, even though several unsolicited offers for TikTok have been floated in recent weeks.
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 presented by its ties to China.
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 was 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.”
The issue of TikTok’s shutdown came to a head after the Supreme Court rejected the appeal by TikTok and parent ByteDance to halt the law on First Amendment grounds. The court ruled in a unanimous opinion that the law doesn’t violate 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.”
U.S. 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 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 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.