The TikTok ban kicked in on Sunday, as scheduled. This meant that a social media platform used by more than 150 million Americans a day on their iPhone or Android went dark.
But it didn’t stay dark for long.
Why a TikTok ban?
The U.S. Congress passed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act in April 2024 targeting TikTok. It requires its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to sell the U.S. division of the video/social media service to an American company by Sunday, January 19.
Amid a worsening trade war between the two countries, Congress worried that the Chinese government could use TikTok to spread pro-China propaganda and misinformation to users of the app, or use ByteDance’s customer records to target Americans.
If that seems unreasonable, note that the Supreme Court pointed out in its ruling approving the ban, “ByteDance Ltd. is subject to Chinese laws that require it to ‘assist or cooperate’ with the Chinese Government’s ‘intelligence work’ and to ensure that the Chinese Government has ‘the power to access and control private data’ the company holds.”
TikTok ban goes into effect…
Photo: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac
No sale of ByteDance’s U.S. division took place by the deadline, and the company doesn’t show much interest in doing so, so the terms of the PAFACA Act went into effect early Sunday.
As part of this, Apple removed TikTok from the iPhone and iPad App Store, along with every app made by ByteDance. As it noted in a statement, “Apple is obligated to follow the laws in the jurisdictions where it operates.” The same goes for Google and its Android software marketplace.
But that’s not all. Those who already had the app were shown a popup screen early on Sunday that stated, “A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S. Unfortunately, that means you can’t use TikTok for now.” The popup could not be dismissed, making the app unusable.
ByteDance took this step because federal law enforcement can use the PAFACA Act to levy hefty fines on internet service providers who enable TikTok to reach their customers after a ban goes into place.
… but not for long
Photo: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac
However, later on Sunday, access to the app was restored. The text of the popup splash screen in the TikTok app changed to, “Thanks for your patience and support. As a result of President Trump’s efforts, TikTok is back in the U.S.!”
This is a reference to a social-media post made by the President-elect stating, “I will issue an executive order on Monday to extend the period of time before the law’s prohibitions take effect, so that we can make a deal to protect our national security. The order will also confirm that there will be no liability for any company that helped keep TikTok from going dark before my order.”
Oracle, the primary cloud computing provider for TikTok’s U.S. operations, took this statement as permission to reactivate the service, according to The Information.
The PAFACA Act gives Trump the power to delay enforcement of the legislation for 90 days. That means TikTok is back… for a while.
That said, the TikTok application is currently not in either the Apple App Store nor the Android equivalent at the time of this writing. Which means the service is only available to those who already have the app, and no software updates can be installed.
Trump could be ByteDance’s rescuer
Trump originally led the attack on TikTok during his first administration, but since reversed himself.
“You know, I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok because I won youth by 34 points, and there are those that say that TikTok has something to do with it,” Trump said in December. (He actually lost among young voters, but not as badly as he did in 2020.)
After the 90-day pause in enforcing the PAFACA Act, Trump can order the Justice Department not to enforce the law, but he cannot use a presidential executive order to repeal a law passed by Congress. Even if Trump further assures Apple and Google that there’ll be no penalties if they put TikTok back in their app stores, they’d still be violating the law by doing so.
At a political rally on Sunday, the president-elect proposed a plan in which ByteDance would give the U.S. government half the company. It’s unclear whether that would satisfy the terms of the legislation,.
Trump can urge Congress to repeal the law, but that’s likely to be an uphill fight. The PAFACA Act passed the House of Representatives 360-58 and the Senate 79-18 — overwhelming margins in both houses.
Another option is actually finding a U.S. buyer for the U.S. division of ByteDance. Trump supporter Elon Musk (who already owns rival social-media service X) reportedly talked to the Chinese company about the prospect. A big stumbling block, though, is that ByteDance doesn’t seem interested in selling to anyone.
ByteDance instead pinned its hopes on the incoming president. A statement from the Chinese company says, “We will work with President Trump on a long-term solution that keeps TikTok in the United States.”
While China’s President Xi Jinping expressed his support for ByteDance and TikTok, what he can do is limited. He certainly can’t retaliate by threatening to kick social media services owned by U.S. companies out of his country — all of these were banned in China years ago, long before there was any talk of a U.S. TikTok ban.
This article originally appeared Saturday, January 17. It’s been updated multiple times as the story develops.
