TikTok went offline in the United States on Saturday night (when it was already Sunday morning in Portugal), less than two hours before a ban went into effect. The extraordinary blackout prevented access to one of the world’s most popular social media apps — an app that had been used by 170 million Americans.
Visitors to the app were faced with a message that said: “Sorry, TikTok is currently unavailable. A law has been enacted that bans TikTok in the US. Unfortunately, this means you cannot use TikTok for now.”
TikTok’s action comes after the Supreme Court ruled on Friday to uphold a ban that was passed with broad bipartisan support in Congress and signed in April by President Joe Biden. The law prevents American companies from hosting or providing content to the Chinese-owned social media platform unless it sells itself to a buyer from the United States or one of its allies.
But TikTok may not be gone for long. The company suggested it could be back soon – perhaps as early as Monday.
“We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office,” the company posted via a pop-up message to users who opened the app late Saturday night. “Please stay tuned!”
President-elect Trump said he will “very likely” delay the TikTok ban for 90 days after taking office on Monday, adding in an interview with NBC News that he has not yet made a final decision.
“I think this will certainly be an option that we will analyze. The 90-day extension is something that will most likely be done, because it is appropriate. It’s appropriate. We have to analyze it carefully. It’s a very big situation,” Trump said in the interview.
“If I decide to do this, I will probably announce it on Monday,” he added.
TikTok’s blackout — and the suggestion that it could soon restore its service — is the latest twist in a saga that has been dragging on for months, leaving the app’s fate in limbo.
The app has also disappeared from Apple’s App Store. Although it appears on the Google Play Store, download attempts are met with an error message. And other apps owned by TikTok’s parent company ByteDance — including CapCut — also featured a similar message Saturday night.
Lawmakers said TikTok’s ties to China and its access to vast amounts of data pose a threat to national security.
Many US users told CNN they were preparing for the app’s demise, including influencers and other small businesses who said they depended on the platform for a living. Still, they assured that they had hope that the application would be saved somehow.
But the Supreme Court’s ruling dashed hopes for last-minute legal help.
Some of the companies that operate the app stores and manage the computer servers are concerned about the possibility of being held liable for violating the terms of the ban. These service providers have committed to no longer making the application available to avoid legal consequences, a person familiar with the companies’ discussions told CNN.
Meanwhile, Trump — who first warned about the dangers of TikTok five years ago — is now portraying himself as the app’s savior. Earlier this month, on his Truth Social account, he shared statistics about his own TikTok popularity and asked, “Why would you want to get me off TikTok?”
TikTok CEO Shou Chew met with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago mansion in the weeks leading up to the ban taking effect and is expected to attend Trump’s inauguration on Monday.
TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday.
A 90-day extension?
The law passed last year allows the president to delay the ban from taking effect for 90 days, but requires proof that parties working to arrange a sale of TikTok to a U.S.-owned company have made significant progress.
But TikTok owner ByteDance rejected potential buyers. The company cited its popularity among American users and its value to small businesses across the country as it struggles to stay afloat without any change in ownership.
After the Supreme Court ruled 9-0 to uphold the ban, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre pointed out that the administration would not enforce the law on Biden’s last day in office.
Due to the federal holiday weekend and the inauguration, “actions to implement the law must simply be the responsibility of the next administration,” he said.
But TikTok was not satisfied with this statement. According to a person familiar with the matter, some service providers — companies like Google and Apple, which would face exorbitant fines for allowing U.S. access to TikTok when the ban goes into effect — told TikTok they believed they were vulnerable to law from Sunday.
A person close to TikTok says that “several essential service providers” indicated to TikTok that they would stop carrying the app or its data, which forced the app offline. Service providers cited fears that the ban could be enforced starting Sunday, despite signals to the contrary from the Biden administration.
So, TikTok took steps to take the app offline – at least for now.
The move, and the pop-up with Trump’s name on it, could put even more pressure on the president-elect to negotiate a solution in the coming days or weeks.
TikTok employees were also told by the company on Saturday that the situation was “disappointing” but that the company was working on a solution.
“We know this is a disappointment to you, not only as employees, but also as users. However, we are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reestablish TikTok once he takes office. Please know that our teams are working tirelessly to bring our app back to the US as quickly as possible,” read the message sent to employees.
A White House source reiterated to CNN that there will be no fines from the Biden administration associated with keeping TikTok active on Sunday.
At the same time, though, some Biden officials are pleased that TikTok will be in the dark for a day, as the law passed with strong bipartisan support.
The decision “is going to be made by the next president anyway,” Biden told reporters on Friday.
The last minute of TikTok
On Saturday, the White House called TikTok’s warning about darkness a “stunt.”
“We see no reason for TikTok or other companies to take action in the coming days, before the Trump administration takes office on Monday,” Jean-Pierre said. “We explained our position clearly and directly: the actions to implement this law will be up to the next administration. Therefore, TikTok and other companies should raise any concerns with them.”
A TikTok spokesperson had no immediate reaction to the White House statement.
The company said it expects service providers — such as companies that operate servers full of videos — to restrict access to the app in the early hours of Sunday.
In Apple and Google’s app stores, the most popular free apps last week were TikTok-type apps, including two that are also owned by Chinese companies. One of them, photo-sharing app Lemon8, is owned by ByteDance, just like TikTok. But Lemon8 may suffer the same fate as TikTok in the future.
Given Trump’s public comments about TikTok, any blackout may not last long.
Trump is said to be considering issuing an executive order that could effectively lift the ban and give some time to find a long-term solution.
But the president-elect will face pressure from several directions. Some Republican senators, such as Josh Hawley of Missouri and Tom Cotton of Arkansas, continue to strongly support the ban.
“ByteDance and its communist Chinese masters had nine months to sell TikTok before the Sunday deadline,” Cotton wrote on X. “The very fact that communist China refused to allow the sale reveals exactly what TikTok is: a communist spy app.”
Analyst Richard Greenfield of LightShed Partners, who has long followed the TikTok saga, predicts that TikTok will end up online in the United States.
On Saturday, Perplexity AI, a San Francisco-based AI search engine startup, confirmed to CNN that it has submitted a proposal to ByteDance to merge with TikTok.
CNN’s Auzinea Bacon contributed to this story
