TikTok comes back online after Trump pledges to halt ban
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The law, which was passed by Congress and signed by US President Joe Biden in April, stemmed from fears that user information could end up in the hands of the Chinese government through TikTok’s Beijing-based parent company ByteDance.
Following the court’s decision, Google and Apple removed the app from their digital stores to comply with a federal law that required them to do so if ByteDance didn’t sell its US operation to an approved buyer by Sunday.
Users trying to access the platform received a notification explaining they wouldn’t be able to use the app “for now”, offering hope that the social network would be reinstated after Trump was inaugurated.
“A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the US,” the notification read. “Unfortunately, that means you can’t use TikTok for now.”
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Trump was initially one of the early opponents of TikTok, but changed his views during the presidential campaign, in which he used the app to woo a significant number of young voters, particularly men.
The new law gives the sitting president authority to grant a 90-day extension if a viable sale is under way. While ByteDance previously said it would not sell, Trump’s post on Sunday proposed making the US a partner in a deal.
Trump’s latest announcement adds TikTok to the blizzard of “day one” executive orders Trump has said he plans to issue after he is sworn into office on Monday as America’s 46th president.
He also plans to use the sweeping presidential power to tackle the immigration crisis, shake up the US economy with more aggressive tariffs, wind back climate change policies initiated by the Biden administration and grant pardons to people he believes were unfairly convicted over the January 6, 2021, attack at the US Capitol.
