- TikTok appears to be coming back online in the United States for some users.
- The company had turned off its app for its 170 million US users on Saturday.
- President-elect Donald Trump said he will issue an executive order on Monday to delay a TikTok ban.
TikTok is back online for some users in the United States who access the social media site through web browsers, indicating it might be on its way to coming fully back online.
The mobile app appeared to still be down, although the message announcing that it was unavailable had changed.
TikTok switched off its app for its 170 million US users on Saturday, shortly before a legally imposed deadline for the app to sell to a non-foreign adversary or face a ban from US app stores. Apple and Google have both removed TikTok from their stores.
On Sunday, President-elect Donald Trump said on social media he would issue an executive order to extend the period of time before “the law’s prohibitions take effect” and added that “there will be no liability for any company that helped keep TikTok from going dark” prior to the order.
The TikTok shutdown followed a drawn-out legal battle over the ban-or-divest law, which was passed by Congress last year.
The law required TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to sell the app’s US operations by January 19 or be banned.
As the deadline neared, a message on the app popped up at around 10:30 p.m. Eastern Time on Saturday: “Sorry, TikTok isn’t available right now.”
“A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the US. Unfortunately, that means you can’t use TikTok for now. 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!”
TikTok had argued that the law violated the First Amendment rights of TikTok and its creators, but the Supreme Court ruled against the company on its challenge.
President Joe Biden’s administration had signaled on Friday that it would not enforce the ban.
But TikTok said that it had “failed to provide the necessary clarity and assurance” to service providers and that it would be forced to go dark unless the Biden administration intervened.
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