As of Saturday evening, TikTok, the short video app from Chinese company ByteDance, was unavailable in the United States due to a new law banning the company's apps in the country. On Sunday around noon it happened again.
Although the law calls for ByteDance to sell TikTok to non-Chinese owners or face a ban starting Sunday, TikTok said it was responding to new “clarity” from newly elected President Donald J. Trump as it restored the service.
Mr. Trump pledged early Sunday to delay implementation of the ban to give TikTok more time to make a sale that would comply with the law. It is not yet clear how he will do that.
What's happening with TikTok this weekend?
TikTok feeds stopped working in the United States late Saturday evening. Instead of videos, the app showed a pop-up message to users stating that a law had been passed in the United States banning TikTok and that “President Trump has indicated he will work with us on a solution to restore TikTok once he comes to power. ” It added: “Stay tuned!”
Then on Sunday around noon the app worked again.
“In consultation with our service providers, TikTok is restoring services. We thank President Trump for providing the necessary clarity and assurance to our service providers that they will not face penalties for offering TikTok,” the company said in a statement.
In practice, the law penalizes app stores, such as Apple and Google, and other internet companies, such as Oracle, for distributing or updating TikTok content.
Can President-elect Donald J. Trump reverse the ban?
It is not clear whether Trump can legally stop the ban, but he has promised to do so. Mr. Trump said on the social media platform Truth Social on Sunday that he would issue an executive order on Monday that would “extend the period before the law's bans take effect so we can reach a deal to protect our national security. ”
He also said he planned to strike a deal that would give the United States a 50 percent ownership stake in a new entity involving TikTok, but it was unclear what form that would take. “Without American approval there is no Tik Tok,” he wrote. “With our approval, it is worth hundreds of billions of dollars.”
Can he do that legally?
The new law includes a provision that says a president can extend the ban one time for 90 days if he or she certifies to Congress that a “qualified divestiture” is underway and can occur during that period. But it is not clear whether he can exercise that option now that the law has come into effect. The law was passed by Congress with broad bipartisan support, signed by President Biden and now upheld by the Supreme Court. So if we simply undermine it now, serious questions will arise.
Sarah Kreps, director of the Tech Policy Institute at Cornell University, said Trump's options are now “uncharted legal territory.”
What are the government's concerns with TikTok?
U.S. officials have long been concerned about ByteDance's ties to the Chinese government. They have pointed out that ByteDance could hand over sensitive US user data to Beijing, such as location information, and point to laws that allow the Chinese government to secretly demand data from Chinese companies and citizens for intelligence gathering.
They are also concerned that China could use TikTok's content recommendations to fuel disinformation, a concern that escalated in the United States after the start of the war between Israel and Hamas and during the presidential election.
TikTok has long maintained that it has never misused data or spread propaganda on behalf of Beijing in the United States. It has tried to distance itself from ByteDance, considered one of the world's most valued startups, saying TikTok is headquartered in Singapore and Los Angeles and that ByteDance is majority owned by global investors. But there are still employees in China working on TikTok, even though TikTok itself is not used in China.
Didn't Trump start all this?
Yes. Mr. Trump attempted to orchestrate a sale of TikTok to U.S. companies in 2020 and tried to ban the app — an effort that was ultimately rejected by federal courts. He publicly changed his position on TikTok last March, shortly after meeting Jeff Yass, a billionaire and Republican megadonor who owns a significant portion of ByteDance, although Mr. Trump has said they did not discuss the company.
He also enjoyed his success on the app during the 2024 elections, where he now has over 14 million followers. He has credited the app with helping him win over young voters. In his post on Sunday, he noted that he wanted TikTok users to be able to watch his inauguration through the app.
