Why is TikTok working again in the US as Trump takes office?
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App has resumed operations after saying it received assurance over de facto ban, but its future remains uncertain. TikTok is restoring its service in the US after Donald Trump said he would issue an executive order when president to allow the app to continue operating.
It had shut itself down late on Saturday in advance of a Sunday deadline to divest its Chinese shareholders or face a ban, but resumed operations on Sunday, the day before Trump’s inauguration, saying it had received the appropriate assurances from the president-elect.
TikTok has been under threat from a US federal law requiring its American arm to shed its Chinese ownership – the app is controlled by the Beijing-based company ByteDance – by 19 January over fears the Chinese government could access the personal data of users and manipulate its powerful algorithm, determining what users see. The legislation forbade companies such as Apple, Google or Oracle from distributing or maintaining the app if ByteDance had not completed a deal by 19 January, amounting to a de facto ban.
TikTok had said last week it would “go dark” if the outgoing Biden administration failed to provide assurances. A vague statement from the Biden White House stating that it was down to Trump to enforce the ban was deemed insufficient and so TikTok pulled the plug.
Trump then stated in a post on his Truth Social platform that he would issue an executive order to extend the period of time before the law’s provisions took effect, with no liability for any company that “helped keep TikTok from going dark before my order”.
