TikTok goes dark in the U.S. as ban takes effect

NEW YORK —  TikTok users in the United States were not able to watch videos on the popular social media platform on Saturday evening, just hours before a federal ban on the popular social media platform was set to take effect.

The company’s app was also removed from prominent app stores, including the ones operated by Apple and Google, while its website told users that the short-form video platform was no longer available.

When users opened the TikTok app on Saturday evening, they encountered a pop-up message from the company that prevented them from scrolling on videos.

“A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S.,” the message said. “Unfortunately that means you can’t use TikTok for now.”

“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 message continued, in reference to the president-elect’s pledge to “save” the platform. The company told its users to stay tuned.

The only option the message gives to U.S. users is to close the app, or click another option that leads them to the platform’s website. There, users are shown the same message and given the option to download their data, an option TikTok previously said may take days to process.

Before that announcement went out, TikTok had said in another message to users that its service would be “temporarily unavailable” and told them it was working to restore its U.S. service “as soon as possible.”

It’s unclear how long the platform will remain dark. In an interview with NBC News on Saturday, Trump said he was thinking about giving TikTok a 90-day extension that would allow it to continue operating. If such an extension happens, Trump — who once favored a TikTok ban — said it would “probably” be announced Monday, the day he is to be sworn in as president.

In Washington, lawmakers and Trump and Biden administration officials have long raised concerns about the app, which is seen as a national security threat due to its Chinese ownership. TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a technology company based in Beijing that operates the well-known video editing app CapCut and Lemon8 — both of which were also unavailable for service Saturday evening.

While defending the law in court, the Biden administration argued it was concerned about TikTok collecting vast swaths of U.S. user data that could fall into the hands of the Chinese government through coercion.

Officials have also warned that the algorithm that fuels what users see on the app is vulnerable to manipulation by Chinese authorities, who can use it to shape content on the platform in a way that’s difficult to detect. But to date, the U.S. has not publicly provided evidence of TikTok handing user data to Chinese authorities or tinkering with its algorithm to benefit Chinese interests.

The statute that targets the company was passed by Congress in April after it was included as part of a high-priority $95-billion package that provided foreign aid to Ukraine and Israel. After President Biden signed it, TikTok and ByteDance promptly sued on 1st Amendment grounds.

The Supreme Court unanimously decided on Friday that the risk to national security posed by TikTok’s ties to China outweighs concerns about limiting speech by the app or its popularity — with 170 million users in the United States.

After the court ruling, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and Deputy Atty. Gen. Lisa Monaco had said that the Biden administration would leave the law’s implementation to Trump since he is due to take office the day after it goes into effect.

But TikTok said after the court ruling Friday that it “will be forced to go dark” if the Biden administration didn’t provide a “definitive statement” to the companies that deliver its service in the U.S.

Jean-Pierre had called TikTok’s demand a “stunt” and said there was no reason for it or other companies “to take actions in the next few days before the Trump administration takes office.”

Under the law, mobile app stores are barred from offering TikTok and internet hosting services are prohibited from delivering the service to American users.

The statue allows a president to extend the deadline by 90 days if a sale is in progress. But no clear buyers have emerged, and ByteDance has previously said it won’t sell TikTok.

On Saturday, artificial intelligence startup Perplexity AI submitted a proposal to ByteDance to create a new entity that merges Perplexity with TikTok’s U.S. business, according to a person familiar with the matter. If successful, the new structure would include other investors and allow ByteDance’s existing shareholders to retain their stake in the company, the person said.

Perplexity is not asking to purchase the ByteDance algorithm that feeds TikTok users videos based on their interests and has made the platform such a phenomenon.

Other investors have also been eyeing TikTok. “Shark Tank” star Kevin O’Leary recently told a consortium of investors that he and billionaire Frank McCourt had offered ByteDance $20 billion in cash for the platform. Trump’s Treasury secretary during his first term, Steven T. Mnuchin, also said last year that he was putting together an investor group to buy TikTok.

Hadero writes for the Associated Press.