What you need to know
- An American law that came into force on January 19, 2025 bans TikTok, owned by the Chinese company ByteDance.
- TikTok already displays messages to Android app users stating that the platform is no longer available.
- The message indicates that President-elect Trump may work with TikTok to restore service in the United States after he takes office on Monday, January 20.
TikTok is officially shut down in the United States. The app is prohibited as of Sunday, January 19, 2025, when a law enacting the ban takes effect. Several pop-up messages began appearing for users of the TikTok app for Android in the United States on the night of Saturday, January 18, just before the impending ban. Although the latest message forces TikTok to become completely unavailable, it gives hope that service can be restored quickly.
“Sorry, TikTok is not available at the moment,” the latest message reads, as seen in a screenshot that appeared for Android Central below. “A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the United States. Unfortunately, this means you cannot use TikTok at this time.”
Over the past few days, there have been reports about how the TikTok ban will impact the impending transition of presidential power in the United States. Outgoing US President Joe Biden refused to enforce the ban, as reported by several media outlets, including The United States today. This leaves the fate of the TikTok ban in the hands of President-elect Donald Trump, who will be sworn in on Monday, January 20.
Recent reports have indicated that Trump would consider granting TikTok an extension in hopes that the company would sell off the U.S. portion of its business. The country’s lawmakers 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 asked.
The most recent notification hints at the direction Trump could take. “We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to restore TikTok once he takes office,” the notice said. “Please stay tuned!”
For now, the notification provides buttons for Learn more And Close the app. TikTok is officially offline for US users and will remain that way until, if and when the company and the federal government can find a way to move forward. As reported The informationTikTok’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 legally allowed to operate in the country.
