The Chinese-owned social media app must divest from its parent company or face a federal ban
TikTok has announced a blackout of the service for some 170 million US users of the viral social media app, days after the Supreme Court issued a ruling that could pave the way for a national ban of the platform.
On Friday, the federal judiciary ruled that TikTok needs to divest from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, by Sunday or face a ban.
Late Saturday, users in the US received an update for TikTok, blocking the application’s use and explaining the outage.
“We regret that a US law banning TikTok will take effect on January 19 and force us to make our services temporarily unavailable,” the messages said.
“We’re working to restore our service in the US as soon as possible,” it added.
TikTok warned about the possible suspension of its services in a statement on its newsroom page on Saturday.
“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 short-video platform stated.
The Supreme Court’s decision stems from allegations that ByteDance’s ownership of TikTok poses a risk to US national security. According to the court, the app’s ownership could potentially allow the Chinese government access to American users’ data.
TikTok has dismissed allegations that its Chinese ownership poses a threat, maintaining that it has “never shared” American users’ data with the government.
President-elect Donald Trump has signaled that he will probably give the app a temporary reprieve from the ban to allow it to be sold to a non-Chinese company. Trump will “most likely” give the app a “90-day extension,” he told NBC news in a phone interview on Saturday.
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