After halting it the previous evening, TikTok announced on Sunday that it would be bringing service back to users in the United States.
After President-elect Donald Trump gave the required guarantees to the company’s service providers, TikTok announced in a statement that its video platform was returning to the internet.
TikTok stated in a post on X that it is now working to restore service in accordance with our service providers. We appreciate President Trump giving our service providers the clarity and assurance they need to know that they won’t be penalized for giving TikTok to more than 170 million Americans and enabling the success of more than 7 million small businesses.
It is a resolute defense of the First Amendment and an opposition to capricious censorship. The business also stated that it will collaborate with President Trump to find a sustainable solution that keeps TikTok in the US.
Trump made a post on Truth Social urging TikTok to keep its service available just hours before it shut it to Americans.
Trump said he wanted it to be accessible so that his inauguration on Monday could be aired.
In order to reach an agreement to safeguard our national security, I will issue an executive order on Monday to prolong the time before the law’s prohibitions go into effect. Trump said, “The order will also confirm that any company that helped keep TikTok from going dark before my order will not be held liable.”
Stay tuned for real-time updates.
Sunday afternoon saw the sudden return of TikTok’s availability, with web browsers first providing access to its content. Some people were able to use it later in the day, and it greeted users who returned with the message “Welcome back! I appreciate your support and patience. Thanks to President Trump’s efforts, TikTok has returned to the United States! On TikTok, you can keep making, sharing, and discovering everything you’re interested in.
It was still not possible to download the software from the Google and Apple app stores.
According to the law prohibiting TikTok, which was supposed to take effect on Sunday, the president may, under specific conditions, issue a 90-day extension before the ban takes effect.
Unless its Chinese owner, ByteDance, sold the business to a non-Chinese buyer, TikTok would be shut down under a statute signed by President Joe Biden in April.
Both Biden and the incoming Trump administration seemed to revert their previous stances on TikTok before to the ban’s installation.
Trump, who had called for a ban during his first term as president, publicly defended TikTok throughout his campaign, claiming he would save it.
The Biden administration said in a statement that it will not implement the ban, leaving that duty to Trump, following the Supreme Court’s approval of the measure on Friday.
The app’s removal from app stores and suspension of service for US users occurred on Saturday night.
The future of TikTok in the United States remains uncertain.
Following TikTok’s relaunch, numerous Republicans seemed to disagree with Trump on the possible course of events. “I believe we will enforce the law,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., stated on Sunday during NBC News Meet the Press. He also added, “When President Trump said, Save TikTok, in the Truth [Social] post, we interpreted that as him attempting to impose a real divestiture, ownership transfer, and change of hands.
In a statement, Sens. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., also praised the restriction and stated that they do not see any justification for an extension, as Trump has suggested.
There is no legal justification for extending the law’s effective date in any way now that it has gone into force. According to the statement, ByteDance must consent to a transaction that complies with the qualified-divestiture requirements of the law by cutting off all connections between TikTok and Communist China in order for the app to reappear online in the future.
The law requires ByteDance to eventually sell TikTok to a non-Chinese owner, something the parent firm has expressed no interest in doing, even if the company is granted an extension, as Trump promised in an executive order on Monday.
In its most recent statement, TikTok stated that it will collaborate with President Trump to find a long-term solution that will keep the app in the US.
Trump has suggested a joint venture for TikTok in which the United States would control 50%, but even that plan may encounter difficulties. It’s unclear right now if ByteDance may surpass the 20% ownership cap set by the law for foreign hostile owners without a revision to the legislation.
The term “controlled by a foreign adversary” is defined under the law in a number of ways, but one of them is: an organization in which a foreign individual or group of foreign individuals directly or indirectly possess at least 20 percent of the business.
Of course, the law might be changed by Congress.