TikTok Restores Service in U.S. After Briefly Going Dark Due to Supreme Court Ban

On Friday, January 17, the Supreme Court of the United States The federal law was unanimously supported This will result in TikTok being banned unless its Chinese parent company, ByteDance Ltd., initiates a sale by Sunday, January 19. And last night, January 18, TikTok went dark in response, with users unable to see content and major app stores removing the download platform. . However, TikTok has since restored service in the US earlier today, apparently in response to claims by President-elect Donald J. Trump that he would temporarily halt the ban with an executive order on his first day in office. Associated Press Reports.

“I will be issuing an executive order on Monday to extend the period of time before our ban goes into effect, so we can make a deal to protect our national security,” Trump wrote on Truth Social this morning (January 19). The order will also confirm that there will be no… There is no liability for any company that helped prevent TikTok from going dark prior to my request.

“I would like the United States to have 50% ownership in a joint venture,” the president-elect continued. By doing this, we save TikTok, keep it in good hands and allow it to express itself. Without US approval, there would be no TikTok. “So, my initial idea is a joint venture between the current owners and/or new owners where the United States gets 50% ownership in a joint venture that is created between the United States and any purchase that we choose.” It is not clear whether Trump is proposing that TikTok become a managed app. The government or a platform that he himself owns.

Federal law allows the sitting president to grant a 90-day extension only if there is “significant progress” in selling to a non-Chinese-owned company, but ByteDance has repeatedly said it will not sell despite investors making offers. While the company that runs TikTok in the US said the steps Trump outlined on Sunday provided “the necessary clarity and assurance to our service providers that they will not face any penalties,” TikTok remained unavailable for download in the Apple and Google app stores.

The Supreme Court unanimously approved the law last Friday, ruling that TikTok’s alleged risk to national security outweighs concerns about First Amendment rights, despite opposition from party leaders who fear alienating 170 million American users. President Joe Biden signed the legislation into law after Congress passed it by an overwhelming majority, but said he would not implement it on Sunday.

During Trump’s first term as president He threatened To ban Tik Tok numerous timesand went so far as to use an executive order to try to do so. In response to TikTok File a lawsuit against United States government in August 2020. Shortly after assuming the presidency in June 2021, Biden signed an executive order rescinding Trump’s ban on TikTok, instead ordering the Secretary of Commerce to investigate whether the app posed a threat to US national security. In 2022, reports revealed that ByteDance employees in China had access to private US user data. And then Tik Tok Announce All US user traffic will be directed to Oracle Cloud, the US technology company’s servers, instead.

In April 2024, Biden signed a bipartisan TikTok bill, giving ByteDance six months to sell its controlling stake in the app or be banned in the United States. A few weeks later, TikTok filed a new lawsuit to block this law. Contact It is an “extraordinary interference with freedom of expression rights.” The court ultimately responded, in its unsigned opinion, that “Congress has determined that divestment is necessary to address its well-supported national security concerns regarding TikTok’s data collection practices and relationship with a foreign adversary.”