As expected, TikTok has shut down in the United States as the divest-or-ban law takes effect: “TikTok has gone dark across the United States following the enforcement of a contentious ban-or-divest law passed last year. The app, used by an estimated 170 million Americans, has been removed from both Apple and Google app stores, rendered inaccessible on the web, and now blocks users from viewing videos in its app.”
ByteDance, however, has refused to divest its stake in TikTok, arguing that the concerns are overblown and politically motivated. The company’s resistance led to months of legal battles, culminating in a Supreme Court decision last week that upheld the law and rejected TikTok’s arguments that it violated free speech protections.
In response to the legal developments, TikTok preemptively ceased its operations in the U.S. Starting at 9 PM ET on Saturday, the app began displaying a warning message to users: “We regret that a U.S. law banning TikTok will take effect on January 19th and force us to make our services temporarily unavailable. We’re working to restore our service in the U.S. as soon as possible, and we appreciate your support. Please stay tuned.”
This was expected because when a parliament passes a legislation, to fix a “national security issue ” as a reason, and the president appends his or her signature, making it law of the land, it is a done-deal, and nothing will change the implementation as on this matter, unless one returns to the parliament to abolish the law. The TikTok excursion to the Supreme Court was a waste of time as there is no justice in the world that will overrule a parliament, and president, on a direct matter that involves national security with a foreign adversary.
Now, it is up to President Trump to help. [Update: TikTok is back live]
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As TikTok fades in America with thousands getting pink slips of lost jobs, America and President Biden have unveiled Broken Web 3.0 which makes it easy for any country to kick any website, app or portal out. Expect Facebook, Instagram, X, etc to suddenly go offline in some places as the template has been approved in the United States of America on how to make a social media ecosystem go dark. And when those actions begin, the players can point to a precedent that even the great America has shown that it is indeed a way to live in the 21st century.
In US, there is nothing TikTok can do except losing ownership that will make it remain in US, but Facebook can remain in China by complying 100% with local Chinese laws while still being owned and controlled by Meta (US owner of Facebook). Apple is in China because its apps store complies with local law and they have not asked Apple App store to sell to a local Chinese buyer. Note that Google Play store is not in China because Google did not follow the local laws as Apple did!
It is important to note that China will allow Facebook, Instagram, etc, to operate in China provided Facebook, etc, will host, and keep all data in China, and follow its local censorship rules, even as they own the companies from America. Facebook and cousins do not want to do those. That differs from the TikTok USA case as the company is open to follow ALL ORDINANCES (local hosting, data, censorship, etc) except losing ownership of the company! The web has changed because of this!
TikTok went dark in the U.S. late Saturday, shortly before its ban was set to take effect. Apple and Google removed it from their app stores, while TikTok’s 170 million U.S. users were greeted with a message reading: “Sorry, TikTok isn’t available right now,” adding that President-elect Trump “has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok” after taking office. The platform had also sought assurances President Biden would not enforce the ban.
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