TikTok went dark in the U.S. on Saturday night as a result of a federal law that bans the popular short-form video app for millions of Americans. However, the company began restoring service by midday Sunday.
TikTok users began receiving a message about the ban around 10:30 p.m. Eastern on Saturday evening, and the app also disappeared from the Apple and Google Play app stores. As of Sunday morning, some users in the U.S. could still access TikTok via the web.
"Sorry, TikTok isn't available right now," the company's message reads. "A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S. Unfortunately, that means you can't use TikTok for now."
The message also suggested this might only be a temporary disappearance. TikTok credited President-elect Donald Trump for indicating "he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office," with users urged to "stay tuned!"
The company warned earlier this week the app's disappearance was imminent, saying Friday that it would "go dark" unless President Joe Biden's administration made a "definitive statement" that it wouldn't enforce the ban.
Bipartisan majorities in the House and Senate passed a law last April requiring TikTok's owner ByteDance to either sell the app or see it banned in the United States due to concerns over potential Chinese surveillance and propaganda, with Biden quickly signing the bill. And while efforts to force ByteDance to divest go back to Trump's first administration, he has taken a different tone recently. Trump asked the Supreme Court to delay the ban and said he would "most likely" give the company a 90-day extension.
The Supreme Court issued a ruling upholding the law Friday; and the Biden administration seemed inclined to leave the app's fate in the hands of the next president. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre noted that with the law taking effect right before Trump's inauguration on Monday, "actions to implement the law simply must fall to the next Administration." Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco issued a similar statement that "the next phase of this effort — implementing and ensuring compliance with the law after it goes into effect on January 19 — will be a process that plays out over time.”
TikTok, however, suggested this was not enough assurance for "critical service providers" to continue listing or hosting the app in the United States unless the Biden administration made the aforementioned "definitive statement." Jean-Pierre called TikTok's response "a stunt" and claimed there's "no reason for TikTok or other companies to take actions in the next few days before the Trump administration takes office on Monday.”