The controversial Chinese-owned app TikTok has gone offline, about an hour and a half before a deadline that would see it banned in the US.
The app posted a message at about 10.30 p.m. eastern time saying: “Sorry, TikTok isn’t available right now,” adding: “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 app’s 170 million users may not have to wait too long – Donald Trump takes office again on Monday and he has indicated that he will probably extend the deadline by at least 90 days, during which a longer-term solution may be found
On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the law requiring TikTok to be sold to a U.S. company or banned by Sunday, January 19.
A law, passed by Congress last year, requires TikTok to divest from its parent company, ByteDance, due to its proximity to the Chinese government. Lawmakers are concerned that China, a foreign adversary, could access Americans’ data and impede their privacy.
TikTok asked the Supreme Court to intervene, believing it was a violation of the First Amendment. The court disagreed.
While the law only requires that TikTok be removed from Google and Apple app stores, TikTok had indicated that it will take itself offline completely and “go dark”.
Key Points
- Supreme Court upholds TikTok ban
- White House says TikTok should remain available – and shutdown will be up to Trump
- Biden will not enforce TikTok ban before leaving office, report says
- Here's how you can prepare for TikTok ban
- Trump says he will ‘most likely’ give TikTok a 90-day reprieve on ban
Coco Gauff writes ‘RIP TikTok USA’ on TV camera at Australian Open as app goes offline
05:37
,
Phil Thomas
Tennis star Coco Gauff mourned the loss of TikTok’s app in the US, writing on a TV camera lens “RIP TikTok USA” and drawing a broken heart right after winning a match at the Australian Open to reach the quarterfinals.
Gauff’s three-set victory in the Grand Slam tournament’s main stadium finished on Sunday afternoon local time in Melbourne — about an hour after TikTok could no longer be found on prominent app stores on Saturday in the United States.
Full story:
Mixed reactions to TikTok going offline
04:36
,
Phil Thomas
There were mixed reactions in the immediate aftermath of TikTok going offline, about an hour and a half before a deadline that would have seen it banned.
Former Ohio state senator and Bernie Sanders surrogate Nina Turner tweeted: “Congratulations, Democrats. This could’ve been avoided had you listened to progressives last year when this bill was being forced through Congress.”
Every American TikTok user is currently seeing this when they try to open the app.
— Nina Turner (@ninaturner) January 19, 2025
Congratulations, Democrats.
This could’ve been avoided had you listened to progressives last year when this bill was being forced through Congress. pic.twitter.com/NaP4GsiWbK
Mike Nellis, former senior adviser to Kamala Harris, said TikTok going offline was a “disaster for Democrats.” He tweeted: “Most political issues never touch people’s daily lives—but 170 million Americans just had their favorite social media platform taken away from them. And Trump is going to position himself as the savior.”
Anybody acting like TikTok going offline isn’t a political disaster for Democrats is deeply unserious.
— Mike Nellis (@MikeNellis) January 19, 2025
Most political issues never touch people’s daily lives—but 170 million Americans just had their favorite social media platform taken away from them.
And Trump is going to… pic.twitter.com/NarV5SEahc
Another voice on the left: Tommy Vietor – a former Obama staffer and now a co-host on the Pod Save America podcast – tweeted TikTok’s message explaining why it was offline and suggesting Trump could save it, adding: “Chinese Communist Party running ads for Trump on TikTok.”
Chinese Communist Party running ads for Trump on TikTok pic.twitter.com/QDKA271hK4
— Tommy Vietor (@TVietor08) January 19, 2025
TikTok goes dark 90 minutes before deadline but posts message suggesting Trump could save it
04:22
,
Phil Thomas
TikTok had warned that it would “go dark” before Sunday’s deadline for it to divest from its Chinese owner, ByteDance, and it stuck to its word. About an hour and a half before midnight on the east coast, users trying to access the app were confronted with a message saying that it “isn’t available right now.”
However, the message threw users the tantalising hint that the man who will become president on Monday, Donald J. Trump, could help find a “solution” to help keep TikTok running.
Michelle Del Rey and Oliver O’Connell have the full story:
White House calls TikTok statement a ‘stunt’
04:00
,
Phil Thomas
Before TikTok went offline late on Saturday, Biden White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called the app’s statement about being forced to go dark Sunday a “stunt.”
We have seen the most recent statement from TikTok. It is a stunt, and we see no reason for TikTok or other companies to take actions in the next few days before the Trump Administration takes office on Monday. We have laid out our position clearly and straightforwardly: actions to implement this law will fall to the next administration. So TikTok and other companies should take up any concerns with them.
TikTok has gone offline with the message ‘temporarily unavailable'
03:43
,
Michelle Del Rey
TikTok users are no longer able to use the platform after the app went dark on Saturday evening. Users saw the following message when trying to log on to the app about a day before a ban is set to go into effect.
In the message, TikTok leaders said they “are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution.”
In numbers: How TikTok became the world’s most controversial app
03:00
,
Oliver O'Connell
After amassing more than 170 million users in the country in less than seven years, TikTok is now facing an outright ban in the US.
Anthony Cuthbertson reports on how it became the most controversial app in the world.
When will the TikTok ban begin?
02:00
,
Oliver O'Connell
Massive social media app TikTok could be banned in the US unless its Chinese parent company sells it by Sunday. At the time of writing, the app remains active in the United States.
The proposed ban was enacted by Congress with bipartisan supportin April. Now, that law is being disputed in front of the Supreme Court. The ban gave Chinese-owned ByteDance until 19 January to sell TikTok. If it fails to do so, a nationwide ban is set to come into force – despite having 170 million US users.
Albert Toth reports.
TikTok alternative Lemon8 might be gaining popularity but may also face a ban
01:00
,
Oliver O'Connell
More and more TikTok users have turned to the company’s alternative social media app, Lemon8. This Instagram-meets-Pinterest lifestyle app is being promoted furiously by parent company ByteDance.
But despite the recent rise in popularity, Lemon8 is in jeopardy in the U.S. as well, as Rhian Lubin reports.
When did legislation against TikTok arise?
00:00
,
AP
Efforts to ban TikTok resurfaced in Congress early last year, and quickly gained bipartisan support among lawmakers who voiced about the potential for the platform to surveil and manipulate Americans.
The legislation the Supreme Court upheld passed the House and the Senate in April after it was included as part of a high-priority $95 billion package that provided foreign aid to Ukraine and Israel. President Joe Biden quickly signed it, and the two companies and a group of content creators quickly sued.
A lower court upheld the statute in early December. The legislation gave ByteDance nine months from the enactment date to sell TikTok, and a possible three-month extension if a sale was in progress.
The deadline’s arrival the day before Trump’s inauguration makes things tricky. Only the sitting president can issue a 90-day stay on the ban and can do so only if a buyer has taken concrete steps toward a purchase.
Although experts have said the app would not disappear from existing users’ phones Sunday, new users won’t be able to download it and updates won’t be available. That will eventually render the app unworkable, the Justice Department has said in court filings.
What happened when TikTok entered negotiations with the Biden administration?
Saturday 18 January 2025 23:30
,
AP
Between January 2021 and August 2022, representatives for TikTok engaged in serious negotiations with the Biden administration about the app’s future in the U.S. The talks resulted in a 90-page draft security agreement that the company presented to CFIUS in August 2022. The two sides then ceased substantive negotiations, according to TikTok’s attorneys, though some meetings also took place in following months.
A copy of the draft agreement submitted in court showed that it would have opened up TikTok’s U.S. platform for security inspections and blocked access of U.S. user data from China. The company says it has already implemented some provisions of the agreement, including routing U.S. user data to servers operated by software giant Oracle.
In its lawsuit to overturn the sell-or-ban law, the company said it spent more than $2 billion to implement aspects of its appeasement plan, which it calls Project Texas.
But the Department of Justice and administration officials argued in court documents that the proposal failed to create sufficient separation between TikTok’s U.S. operations and China. They also said the opacity of TikTok’s algorithm, coupled with the size and technical complexity of the platform, made it impossible for the U.S. government – or its technology provider, Oracle – to effectively guarantee compliance with the proposal.
In February 2023, the White House directed federal agencies to remove TikTok from government-issued devices, mirroring some other countries that also prohibited the use of the app on official devices.
The following month, lawmakers grilled TikTok CEO Shou Chew during an hours-long hearing in which he sought to reassure a tense House committee that the platform prioritized user safety and should not be banned due to its Chinese connections.
According to court documents, TikTok’s representatives had their last meeting with CFIUS in September 2023. Later that year, criticism against the platform increased in volume among Republicans in Washington who claimed the platform amplified pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel content, an accusation the company vigorously denied.
TikTok encounters critics
Saturday 18 January 2025 23:00
,
AP
Challenges came in tandem with TikTok’s success. U.S. officials expressed concerns about the company’s roots and ownership, pointing to laws in China that require Chinese companies to hand over data requested by the government. Another concern became the proprietary algorithm that populates what users see on the app.
During his first term in office, Trump issued executive orders in 2020 banning TikTok and the Chinese messaging app WeChat, moves that courts subsequently blocked. India banned TikTok — along with other Chinese apps — the same year following a military clash along the India-China border that killed 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers.
In 2021, the Biden administration dropped the Trump-era orders but left in place a national security review of TikTok by a little-known government agency known as Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS.
The rise of TikTok
Saturday 18 January 2025 22:30
,
AP
TikTok is one of more than 100 apps developed in the past decade by ByteDance, a technology firm founded in 2012 by Chinese entrepreneur Zhang Yiming and headquartered in Beijing’s northwestern Haidian district.
In 2016, ByteDance launched a short-form video platform called Douyin in China and followed up with an international version called TikTok. It then bought Musical.ly, a lip-syncing platform popular with teens in the U.S. and Europe, and combined it with TikTok while keeping the app separate from Douyin.
Soon after, the app boomed in popularity in the U.S. and many other countries, becoming the first Chinese platform to make serious inroads in the West. Unlike other social media platforms that focused on cultivating connections among users, TikTok tailored content to people’s interests.
The often silly videos and music clips content creators posted gave TikTok an image as a sunny corner of the internet where users could find fun and a sense of authenticity. Finding an audience on the platform helped launch the careers of music artists like Lil Nas X.
TikTok gained more traction during the shutdowns of the COVID-19 pandemic, when short dances that went viral became a mainstay of the app. To better compete, Instagram and YouTube eventually came out with their own tools for making short-form videos, respectively known as Reels and Shorts. By that point, TikTok was a bona fide hit.
Recap: How did TikTok end up in this position?
Saturday 18 January 2025 21:30
,
AP
The possibility of the U.S. outlawing TikTok kept influencers and users in anxious limbo during the four-plus years that lawmakers and judges debated the fate of the video-sharing app. Now, the moment its fans dreaded is here, but uncertainty over TikTok’s future lingers.
On Friday, the Supreme Court upheld a federal law that bans the immensely popular, trend-setting social media platform starting Sunday unless its China-based parent company, ByteDance Ltd., sells to an approved buyer.
The unanimous decision ended a legal battle that pitted national security concerns against free speech rights. TikTok, ByteDance and some of the devoted users who rely on the platform for entertainment, income and community argued the statute violated the First Amendment. The Biden administration sought to show ByteDance’s ownership and control of TikTok posed an unacceptable threat.
The Supreme Court ruling, however, is not guaranteed to end the TikTok saga, which has become enveloped in the wider battle between Beijing and Washington. A Biden administration official told The Associated Press on Thursday that the outgoing administration would leave the law’s implementation — and potential enforcement — to President-elect Donald Trump.
Trump, who is set to return to the White House the day after the ban takes effect, has credited TikTok with helping him win the support of more young voters in last year’s election. A Trump adviser said this week that the incoming administration would “put measures in place to keep TikTok from going dark.” What those measures will look like — and if they can withstand legal scrutiny — remained unknown Saturday.
What is Rednote and why are TikTok users switching over?
Saturday 18 January 2025 21:00
,
Oliver O'Connell
A Chinese short-form video app called Xiaohongshu is now the top free app in the Apple App Store, as social media users look to get out ahead of a potential US TikTok ban set to take effect on Sunday.
The app, known as RedNote in English, functions like a cross between Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest, and boasts over 300 million monthly active users, considerably below the user base of TikTok.
Josh Marcus takes a look.
Trump confirms a likely 90-day extension for TikTok while they ‘figure something out'
Saturday 18 January 2025 20:52
,
Oliver O'Connell
Trump confirms he will likely do a 90 day extension on TikTok while they "figure something out."
— Rachel Scott (@rachelvscott) January 18, 2025
"Well, I have the right as you know, I'm the one who is going to be calling the shots. Most likely, I'll extend for 90 days — you have the extension for 90 days as you probably know.…
How do Americans feel about the TikTok ban?
Saturday 18 January 2025 20:30
,
Oliver O'Connell
Surprisingly, Republicans are more likely to support a ban of TikTok despite Donald Trump’s favorable stance toward the app.
Interestingly, Republicans are more likely than Democrats to support banning TikTok despite Trump’s favorable stance towards the app.
— Steven Rattner (@SteveRattner) January 18, 2025
Notably, a majority of Americans are not in favor of the decision. pic.twitter.com/Lgfr8W7pFY
TikTok holding out for Trump to reverse ban
Saturday 18 January 2025 20:00
,
Oliver O'Connell
TikTok’s only chance of avoiding a ban in the US appears to lie with incoming president Donald Trump.
Here’s what you need to know.
TikTok star says poignant goodbye with one last viral salmon bowl
Saturday 18 January 2025 19:30
,
Oliver O'Connell
Emily Mariko, who rose to fame as a TikTok food and lifestyle influencer, posted a poignant farewell video the day before the January 19 deadline that will require the social media platform to either be sold to a U.S. company or banned.
In the video, Mariko is alongside her son, Theodore as she assembles her infamous salmon bowl — the dish that first exploded her large online presence to over 12 million followers.
Brittany Miller has the story.
RedNote users in China welcome TikTok refugees
Saturday 18 January 2025 19:00
,
Oliver O'Connell
TikTok users in the US have reported receiving a warm welcome on other Chinese-owned apps amid a looming ban of the hugely popular social media platform.
China-based Lemon8 and RedNote have both experienced a surge in downloads from US users as the 19 January deadline for the TikTok ban approaches, each topping the app charts.
Anthony Cuthbertson reports.
White House calls TikTok statement a 'stunt’
Saturday 18 January 2025 18:40
,
Oliver O'Connell
Biden White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has called the TikTok statement about being forced to go dark Sunday a “stunt.”
We have seen the most recent statement from TikTok. It is a stunt, and we see no reason for TikTok or other companies to take actions in the next few days before the Trump Administration takes office on Monday. We have laid out our position clearly and straightforwardly: actions to implement this law will fall to the next administration. So TikTok and other companies should take up any concerns with them.
Trump says he will ‘most likely’ give TikTok a 90-day reprieve on ban
Saturday 18 January 2025 18:30
,
Oliver O'Connell
In a phone interview with NBC News’s Meet the Press moderator Kristen Welker on Saturday, President-elect Donald Trump said he would “most likely” give TikTok a 90-day reprieve from a potential ban in the U.S. after he takes office on Monday.
Trump said he hadn’t made a final decision but was considering a 90-day extension of the Sunday deadline for TikTok’s China-based parent company to sell to a non-Chinese-buyer or face a U.S. ban.
“I think that would be, certainly, an option that we look at. The 90-day extension is something that will be most likely done, because it’s appropriate. You know, it’s appropriate. We have to look at it carefully. It’s a very big situation,” Trump said.
“If I decide to do that, I’ll probably announce it on Monday,” he said.
In numbers: How TikTok became the world’s most controversial app
Saturday 18 January 2025 18:00
,
Oliver O'Connell
After amassing more than 170 million users in the country in less than seven years, TikTok is now facing an outright ban in the US.
Anthony Cuthbertson reports on how it became the most controversial app in the world.
When will the TikTok ban begin?
Saturday 18 January 2025 17:00
,
Oliver O'Connell
Massive social media app TikTok could be banned in the US unless its Chinese parent company sells it by Sunday. At the time of writing, the app remains active in the United States.
The proposed ban was enacted by Congress with bipartisan supportin April. Now, that law is being disputed in front of the Supreme Court. The ban gave Chinese-owned ByteDance until 19 January to sell TikTok. If it fails to do so, a nationwide ban is set to come into force – despite having 170 million US users.
Albert Toth reports.
TikTok alternative Lemon8 might be gaining popularity but may also face a ban
Saturday 18 January 2025 16:00
,
Oliver O'Connell
More and more TikTok users have turned to the company’s alternative social media app, Lemon8. This Instagram-meets-Pinterest lifestyle app is being promoted furiously by parent company ByteDance.
But despite the recent rise in popularity, Lemon8 is in jeopardy in the U.S. as well, as Rhian Lubin reports.
TikTok warns it will ‘go dark’ in US as shutdown looms
Saturday 18 January 2025 15:00
,
Mark Sherman
TikTok said it will have to “go dark” in the US this weekend unless the outgoing Biden administration assures the company it will not enforce a shutdown of the popular app.
On Friday, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the federal law banning the app unless it is sold by its China-based parent company.
The Supreme Court held that the risk to national security posed by TikTok‘s ties to China overcomes concerns about limiting speech by the app or its 170 million users in the United States.
President-elect Donald Trump vowed that he could negotiate a solution while the administration of President Joe Biden has signalled it would not enforce the law - which was passed with overwhelming bipartisan support - beginning Sunday, his final full day in office.
“TikTok should remain available to Americans, but simply under American ownership or other ownership that addresses the national security concerns identified by Congress in developing this law,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement, noting that actions to implement the law will fall to the new administration.
TikTok released a statement late on Friday saying “statements issued today by both the Biden White House and the Department of Justice have failed to provide the necessary clarity and assurance to the service providers that are integral to maintaining TikTok‘s availability to over 170 million Americans.”
“Unless the Biden Administration immediately provides a definitive statement to satisfy the most critical service providers assuring non-enforcement, unfortunately TikTok will be forced to go dark on January 19,” the statement said.
Saturday 18 January 2025 14:35
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Oliver O'Connell
How TikTok became the world’s most controversial app
Saturday 18 January 2025 14:00
,
Anthony Cuthbertson
It’s worth recapping on why TikTok was singled out and became so politically controversial.
After amassing more than 170 million users in the country in less than seven years, TikTok is now facing an outright ban in the US.
Anthony Cuthbertson writes that various federal and state TikTok bans are already in place in the US, with lawmakers citing national security concerns.
These fears have done little to stem TikTok’s growth in the US.
The app has proved to be one of the most popular both in America and globally last year with 52 million downloads in the US and 733 million worldwide – despite more than 3 billion people around the world being blocked from downloading it.
British content creators label US ban ‘deeply unfair'
Saturday 18 January 2025 13:00
,
Sarah Ping
British content creators have called the potential ban on TikTok in the United States “deeply unfair” and said it could impact people’s incomes.
The future of the short form video app remains uncertain as a ban on the app looms, but the incoming Donald Trump administration has hinted at keeping it online.
Aidan Halling, also known by his handle @etherealgames on TikTok, creates comedy skits on gaming for his 30,000 followers, and is worried his income may take a hit as the ban could force him to ditch the app.
“A lot of creators rely on this app for a living, and it’s about to be pulled away from under them,” he told the PA news agency.
“This ban could potentially force me to pivot to different content or stop posting all together.
“While 15% of my followers are American, around 40% of initial video views are from the US.”
He fears a ban could also happen in the UK and is concerned about the “uncertainty of a consistent social media platform”.
Tom Pratt, 23, a TikToker from London who interacts with users online – mainly Americans – by asking them geography trivia, fears the app will struggle to continue if users from the US are banned from using the platform.
Oracle could dictate TikTok’s future, report says
Saturday 18 January 2025 12:00
,
Andrew Georgeson
The tech company Oracle could dictate TikTok’s immediate future, according to a report from The New York Times. The company is one of the app’s leading server providers.
“It could become a digital roadblock that prevents people from getting access to the content, if they make the decision to shut it down, which is uncertain,” Bob O’Donnell, founder of the market research firm TECHnalysis Research, told the publication.
Oracle did not immediately respond to The Independent’s request for comment.
New Jersey Democratic Rep. Frank Pallone: ‘I urge ByteDance to recognize it’s time to sell TikTok’
Saturday 18 January 2025 11:01
,
Julia Musto
The Supreme Court has UNANIMOUSLY upheld the law requiring TikTok to divest from Chinese Communist Party control if the app wants to continue to operate in the United States.
— Rep. Frank Pallone (@FrankPallone) January 17, 2025
I urge ByteDance to recognize it’s time to sell TikTok. pic.twitter.com/kBwKd6ZcmC
GOP Sen. Pete Ricketts places blame on Chinese Communist Party over TikTok
Saturday 18 January 2025 09:00
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Julia Musto
The Chinese Communist Party works tirelessly to undermine everything we hold dear. This week, I blocked Senate Democrats’ attempts to extend the deadline for TikTok to divest itself from CCP control. The fact the CCP won’t sell it tells you everything you need to know. They want…
— Senator Pete Ricketts (@SenatorRicketts) January 17, 2025
Rep. Gallagher speaks out on TikTok decision: Trump administration has chance for ‘deal of a century'
Saturday 18 January 2025 08:01
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Julia Musto
Congress's goal was never to ban TikTok. It was to allow Americans to use the app safe from Chinese Communist Party control. Today, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld that effort while soundly rejecting TikTok's Orwellian position that protecting the First Amendment somehow…
— Mike Gallagher (@RepGallagher) January 17, 2025
Kentucky Republicans speak out against potential TikTok ban
Saturday 18 January 2025 07:00
,
Julia Musto
Same.
— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) January 17, 2025
Millions of Americans express themselves on TikTok on a daily basis, and it's just wrong for the government to ban it. https://t.co/tRfVai07rh
When tik-tok goes dark, please remember I voted against the so-called tik-tok ban because the legislation was overly broad and sets a dangerous precedent for censorship. https://t.co/PCOjcjCXtS
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) January 17, 2025
Sen. Mitch McConnell urged Supreme Court to uphold TikTok ban-or-divestment
Saturday 18 January 2025 06:00
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Julia Musto
Sen. Mitch McConnell said Friday that he had submitted an amicus briefing urging the Supreme Court to allow the TikTok ban-or-divestment law to take effect.
“The Protecting Americans’ Data from Foreign Adversaries Act of 2024 … is entirely consistent with the First Amendment. The right to free speech enshrined in the First Amendment does not apply to a corporate agent of the Chinese Communist Party,” McConnell wrote in his argument.
Washington state senator reacts to TikTok decision: It ‘confirmed that there’s a real there there'
Saturday 18 January 2025 05:00
,
Julia Musto
I hope the Trump administration will find a solution to shut the Chinese government backdoor, improve the platform, and help content creators earn more revenue for their work. (2/3)
— Sen. Maria Cantwell (@SenatorCantwell) January 17, 2025
The U.S. government has been trying to get ByteDance to divest since the 2020 Trump Administration Executive Order. I hope President Trump does not now become the one to blink and lose this crucial contest with China. (3/3)
— Sen. Maria Cantwell (@SenatorCantwell) January 17, 2025
Sen. Rand Paul on possible TikTok ban: ‘It’s an affront to the First Amendment’
Saturday 18 January 2025 04:01
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Julia Musto
.@RandPaul to @ClayTravis and @BuckSexton on the TikTok ban: "I really think it's an affront to the First Amendment to tell 170 million Americans they can't use a means of expression on social media."
— The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show (@clayandbuck) January 17, 2025
More in the podcast: https://t.co/hGBO5bCsXU pic.twitter.com/xI9xnWdIj4
TikTok says it will go dark on Sunday unless Biden intervenes
Saturday 18 January 2025 02:13
,
Andrew Georgeson
