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Written by Sheila Dang and Jaspreet Singh
(Reuters) – TikTok stopped serving 170 million Americans late on Saturday after the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday ruled against TikTok’s efforts to avoid a ban that would have shut down the app.
The ban is the result of a 2024 law that overrode national security concerns that required TikTok parent ByteDance to sell the popular short video app or see it shut down in the United States on January 19.
It was still unclear how long the ban would last as President-elect Donald Trump, who takes office on Monday, said he would try to find a “political solution” to the issue to keep the device running in the United States. States.
On Sunday, Trump said on Social Media: “SAVE TIKTOK!”
This is what is happening now.
WHAT HAPPENS WITH THE APP?
New users will not be able to download TikTok from the Apple (NASDAQ:) and Google (NASDAQ:) app stores and existing users will not be able to update the app, because the law prohibits any organization from facilitating the download or maintenance of TikTok. application.
It was not immediately clear whether TikTok’s business partners, including Oracle (NYSE:), which provides TikTok’s cloud infrastructure services and stores its US user data, have suspended the services. service.
TikTok plans to keep paying its 7,000 US workers, the company’s leadership said in an internal memo.
HOW WILL USERS BE AFFECTED?
170 million TikTok users in the US can’t use the app even if they haven’t rooted their phones.
As of Sunday, users in the US who were hoping to access TikTok through private networks, or VPNs, can hide the user’s internet protocol, or IP, address and therefore the site’s location. they did not succeed.
Other Chinese social media apps such as RedNote, known in China as Xiaohongshu, are expected to continue to gain traction among US users.
Content creators who have built businesses from their TikTok followers have encouraged their followers to find them through other channels such as Instagram and YouTube.
WHAT WILL ADVERTISERS DO?
Advertisers are rushing to prepare contingency plans ahead of the ban, fearing that the shutdown could put their campaigns on the back burner. One advertising executive described it as “hair on fire” for the ad world, after months of conventional wisdom saying a solution would exist to keep the short-form video app running.
TikTok continues to introduce new features to advertisers, such as an experimental tool that can make it easier to create, edit and add ads in bulk.
The ban puts more than $11 billion in annual US ad spending up for grabs, according to a report by advertising group WARC Media.
“Wall Street will be watching the results of Meta (NASDAQ:), Snap, and others to see who benefits from this rapid shift in spending,” said Craig Atkinson, CEO of the digital marketing firm. Code3.
WHAT HAPPENED TO OUR RELATIONS WITH CHINA?
The ban on TikTok could worsen trade tensions between the US and China that have already been strained after Beijing imposed an export ban on advanced American semiconductor technology.
However, “such a ban would not be surprising as it has been under discussion for five years,” said Sean Ennis (NYSE: ), a professor at the University of East Anglia.
Trump may try to use enforcement to protect TikTok during his four years in office, but he could use the risk of him changing his position to get something meaningful out of China, analysts say. LightShed Partners said.
Reversing the ban could give Trump leverage to negotiate with China, analysts say.
WHO BUY THEM?
TikTok has repeatedly stated that it will not be sold from ByteDance.
That hasn’t deterred billionaire businessman Frank McCourt, former owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team. His consortium values the app without its algorithm at about $20 billion.
Some media reported that Chinese officials are in talks to sell TikTok’s US operations to billionaire Elon Musk, Trump’s biggest financial backer.
TikTok called the reports “myth”.
Hours before the ban went into effect on Saturday, US search engine Perplexity AI filed a request to contact TikTok’s US operations, according to a source familiar with the matter.
