TikTok goes dark 90 minutes before deadline but posts message suggesting Trump could save it
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The move comes a day after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a law barring it for U.S. users. TikTok went dark 90 minutes before a federal ban was set to go into effect on Sunday. Around 10:30 p.m., TikTok users opened the platform to find the following message: “Sorry, TikTok isn’t available right now. A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S. 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. Please stay tuned!”. The platform then gave its 170 million American users the option to click close app or learn more, taking them back to the same screen.
The shutdown comes a day after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a law barring TikTok from U.S. consumers citing threats to national security. President Joe Biden signed legislation in April requiring TikTok to be sold by its owner, Chinese company ByteDance, or face a ban.
The law, called the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, gave the company 270 days. The clock runs out tonight and no buyer has emerged in public. In a last-minute effort to save the app from being barred across the U.S., artificial intelligence company, Perplexity AI, submitted a last-minute bid Saturday to merge its platform with TikTok.
