The ban law, which passed Congress with wide bipartisan majorities and was signed by President Biden last April, gave TikTok until Jan.19 to either divest from ByteDance, or face a ban in the U.S.
The ban law, which passed Congress with wide bipartisan majorities and was signed by President Biden last April, gave TikTok until Jan.19 to either divest from ByteDance, or face a ban in the U.S.
The divest-or-ban law makes it illegal for U.S. app stores — like ones operated by Google or Apple — and web-hosting services to distribute TikTok to its users.
As a result, the application will be pulled from app stores and unavailable for new downloads. Still, existing downloads are not likely to be removed – at least initially – on U.S. devices.
But with no updates coming from app stores, the app will likely become more buggy and eventually nonfunctional for U.S. users.
“The bugs would come from the fact that TikTok could overnight, or over the course of multiple weeks or months, sort of slowly phase off service,” Jason Kelley, director of activism for digital rights non-profit Electronic Frontier Foundation said.
“If I was going to take a bet, it’s that we see in 48 hours, most users will see just some sort of connection error when they go to load TikTok.”
While TikTok has not publicly confirmed its plans, one report claimed the company intends to immediately shut off its app for U.S. users on Sunday.
Unless the Supreme Court strikes down the ban, TikTok is planning to make the app unusable for people in the U.S. once the ban takes effect, The Information reported Tuesday, citing two people familiar with TikTok’s plans.
Under the plan, users trying to open the TikTok app will be greeted with a message directing them to a website with information about the ban, according to The Information report. Users will be given the option to download their data but will not be able to use the app, the outlet added.
TikTok’s lawyer, Noel Fransico, told the high court last week the platform will “go dark” unless the justices step in ahead of the deadline.
We have a full list of scenarios and where things stand at TheHill.com.
