TikTok Flickers Back to Life After Trump Says He Will Stall a Ban
TikTok flickered back to life in the United States on January 19 after President-elect Donald Trump said that he would issue an executive order to stall a federal ban of the app. The abrupt shift came just hours after major app stores removed the popular social media site and it stopped operating for U.S. users as a federal law took effect. The company said in a post on X that in “agreement with our service providers, TikTok is in the process of restoring service.” Trump said in a Sunday morning post on Truth Social that he would “issue an executive order on January 20 to extend the period of time before the law’s prohibitions take effect, so that we can make a deal to protect our national security.” The ban stems from a 2024 law that requires app stores and cloud computing providers to stop distributing or hosting TikTok unless it is sold by its Chinese parent company, ByteDance. Lawmakers passed the law over concerns that the Chinese government could use the app, which claims roughly 170 million United States users, to gather information about Americans or spread propaganda.
TikTok Flickers Back to Life After Trump Says He Will Stall a Ban TikTok is back online in the U.S., following Trump's promise to pause the ban TikTok says it’s coming back online after Trump vowed to halt ban