Piggies, you better get your last favorite before it’s too late. TikTok is reportedly planning to close its app to US users on Sunday, as long as the Biden administration’s order forcing the company to sell itself is not stopped by the Supreme Court or Congress.
Information reports that TikTok has made the decision to turn off the lights on January 19 instead of going limp as some had expected.
Speaking of technology, TikTok can continue to work for users who already have the app installed. Using TikTok will be illegal, but service providers in the United States will not be allowed to work with the social media company. That means Apple and Google would have to remove TikTok from their app stores, and cloud hosting providers like Oracle—which has tried to help TikTok separate its US data from China-based employees—would have to stop using its servers.
TikTok is not banned in other parts of the world, and the company told US workers in a recent memo that they will still have jobs after the ban. TikTok, after all, is very popular around the world, not just in America, and will continue to work as usual outside the country. Apparently it can continue to run the app for US users from a foreign infrastructure. But again, it will be difficult for TikTok to continue in the United States where it will not be accessible to download or update.
However, there were some people who believed that the app would continue to work until it was too outdated to work. But by saying InformationTikTok chose to come out as a martyr, allowing users to immediately see the effects of the ban. A pop-up in the app will reportedly give users more information about why the app they know and love no longer works and why they can no longer communicate with their Chinese spy.
Gizmodo has contacted TikTok for comment but has yet to hear back.
A complete ban on TikTok might be a good thing if you believe the research that suggests social media is harmful to young people. But one of the other social media giants is likely to take its place—YouTube, Instagram, and Snapchat all have their own competing versions of short-lived video products. And in recent days some TikTok users have taken to a short Chinese video app called RedNote, which is already a source of amazing content — meaning, a TikTok ban probably won’t stop Zoomers from frying their brains with mindless scrolling.
One of the potentially hilarious consequences of the TikTok ban is online Zoomers eagerly posting their “Chinese spy,” a reference to allegations that China is using TikTok to spy on Americans.
holy cow, I now realize that this app is responsible for the 2024 video of the year pic.twitter.com/NPdBCc3sSO
— rat king 🐀 (@MikeIsaac) January 14, 2025
If we talk about technology, TikTok is not banned but instead the US government wants it to change ownership, fearing that its Chinese parent company ByteDance could be forced to comply with demands there to influence the content of Americans, or provide private data. If TikTok ends up selling to a new owner, like Elon Musk, it can continue to operate. Back in 2020, the US government similarly forced the Chinese owner of gay dating app Grindr to sell the app to US investors on national security grounds.
TikTok has long denied that the Chinese government has control over its operations, but that has not allayed the concerns of US officials. A recent report suggests that the Chinese government is considering the sale of TikTok to Elon Musk, undermining the notion that the Chinese government has no influence over it. President-elect Donald Trump has asked the Supreme Court to stay the ban until he can get into office and negotiate a deal, possibly to sell his app to Musk in a sweetheart deal. On the other hand, TikTok has firmly stated that it will not sell.
Ironically, the Biden administration has reportedly allowed State Department staff to continue using TikTok for international communications. Your ban, not mine.
