What you need to know
- A U.S. law will take effect Jan. 19, 2025 that bans TikTok, owned by the Chinese company ByteDance.
- TikTok is already showing messages to users on the Android app that the platform is no longer available.
- The message states that President Trump may work with TikTok to return service in the U.S. after he takes office Monday, Jan. 20.
TikTok is officially shutting down in the U.S. The app is set to be banned as of Sunday, Jan. 19, 2025, when a law enacting the ban will take effect. Multiple pop-up messages have appeared for users of the TikTok app for Android in the U.S. throughout the night of Saturday, Jan. 18 ahead of the impending ban. While the latest message forces TikTok to become completely unavailable, it does give hope that service could be restored quickly.
“Sorry, TikTok isn’t available right now,” the latest message reads, as shown in a screenshot that appeared for Android Central below. “A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S. Unfortunately, that means you can’t use TikTok for now.”
Over the last few days, there have been reports concerning how the TikTok ban would be impacted by the looming transition of presidential power in the U.S. Outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden declined to enforce the ban, as reported by multiple outlets, including USA Today. That leaves the fate of the TikTok ban in the hands of incoming President Donald Trump, who will be sworn in on Monday, Jan. 20.
Recent reports have indicated that President Trump will consider giving TikTok an extension in the hopes that it will sell the U.S. part of its business. Lawmakers in the country have maintained that their preference is to divest TikTok from ByteDance, not shut it down. They argue that TikTok’s current ownership poses a national security threat, because Chinese laws could theoretically force ByteDance to hand over U.S. user data to the government if requested.
The most recent notification hints at which way President Trump may be leaning. “We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office,” the notification reads. “Please stay tuned!”
For now, the notification provides buttons for Learn more and Close app. TikTok is officially offline for U.S. users, and it will stay that way until if and when the company and the federal government can figure out a way to move forward. As reported by The Information, TikTok’s U.S. cloud servers are hosted by Oracle, which will keep the platform’s servers powered down until it is definitively clear that it is lawfully permitted to operate in the country.
