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The popular video app went dark in the United States late Saturday, as a law banning it took effect. Now, the company is hoping President-elect Donald J. Trump can bring it back.
Jan. 19, 2025, 12:02 p.m. ET
Starting on Saturday night, TikTok, the short-form video app owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, was unavailable in the United States as a result of a new law that banned the company’s apps in the country.
The law, which calls on ByteDance to sell TikTok to non-Chinese owners or face a ban, was upheld by the Supreme Court on Friday. The court said that the government’s national security concerns about the app topped the free speech concerns involved in shuttering an app used by roughly 170 million U.S. users a month.
Now, TikTok is hoping President-elect Donald J. Trump — who sought to ban the app in 2020 but has since changed his stance — can find a way to bring TikTok back to Americans, despite the law. He pledged to issue an executive order on Monday that would stall the ban, but it’s not clear whether he will be able to save the app.
What’s happening with TikTok this weekend?
TikTok feeds stopped working in the United States late on Saturday night. Instead of videos, the app showed a pop-up message to users that said a law banning TikTok was enacted in the United States and that “President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office.” It added, “Please stay tuned!”
In practice, the law penalizes app stores, like Apple and Google, and other internet companies, like Oracle, for distributing or updating any TikTok content. The app also disappeared from the major app stores on Sunday.
Can President-elect Donald J. Trump reverse the ban?
It is not clear if Mr. Trump can stall the ban under the law, but he has vowed 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 of time before the law’s prohibitions take effect, so that we can make a deal to protect our national security.”
