TikTok is now available for download in the U.S. once more. Bloomberg reports that Apple and Google have restored the popular video-sharing app to the Apple App and Google Play stores as of Thursday evening, after it was initially removed in January.
While TikTok itself initially blocked U.S. users hours prior to the ban officially coming to effect on Jan. 19, the app quickly came back online after President-elect Donald Trump indicated he would not enforce the ban. The Biden administration had also stated they would not be enforcing it, “given the timing of when it goes into effect over a holiday weekend a day before inauguration.”
Trump subsequently signed an executive order temporarily delaying enforcement of the ban as one of his first acts as President. In it, he stated his intent to negotiate a solution which would keep TikTok in the U.S. while addressing the national security concerns which prompted the ban.
Even so, TikTok was reportedly still unavailable in the iOS and Android app stores. Under the Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act banning TikTok, Apple and Google could have been penalised for continuing to enable the distribution and updating of the app.
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Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order delaying the TikTok ban’s enforcement did technically offer Apple and Android immunity as well, with the president ordering that no action be taken to enforce the Act for 75 days. However, the tech giants reportedly held off on allowing TikTok to return to their app stores until they received a Trump-ordered letter from U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi pledging that the ban would not be enforced.
Mashable has reached out to Google and Apple for comment.
While companies no longer fear legal consequences for allowing people in the U.S. to download TikTok for now, it’s still unclear exactly how Trump plans to resolve the issue. Recently, the president floated the idea of the U.S. government itself purchasing TikTok with the sovereign wealth fund he recently ordered be established.
However, TikTok’s parent company ByteDance has consistently maintained that no sale will go ahead, and that the divestment the U.S. government is demanding is “technologically, commercially, and legally infeasible.”
