TikTok was up and running again Sunday just hours after President-elect Donald Trump vowed to keep it “from going dark.”
The Chinese social media app confirmed it was in the process of restoring service in a statement posted to X praising Trump for his part in getting the site back.
In a post on X, TikTok Policy stated:
“We thank President Trump for providing the necessary clarity and assurance to our service providers that they will face no penalties providing TikTok to over 170 million Americans and allowing over 7 million small businesses to thrive.”
“It’s a strong stand for the First Amendment and against arbitrary censorship. We will work with President Trump on a long-term solution that keeps TikTok in the United States,” the statement said.
In a “Welcome back!” message that pops up on the app post-ban, users were told: “Thank you for your patience and support. As a result of President Trump’s efforts, TikTok is back in the US!”
Excited TikTok users took to other social-media sites to share they had regained access to their accounts.
The announcement followed just hours after Trump stated he would sign an executive order on Monday to "prevent TikTok from shutting down." In revealing his intention to preserve the app, Trump, 78, mentioned that the US would acquire a 50% stake in a joint venture to purchase the platform.
It was unclear if Trump intended for the US government to partially own the app.
TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, had previously been given nine months — until Jan. 19 — to either sell the platform's US operations or face a ban in the country.
The ban had been overwhelmingly approved by both houses of Congress in April and was later signed into law by President Biden.
Trump, who initially supported the ban in 2020, stated on Sunday that he aimed to provide the app with a 90-day extension to secure a non-Chinese owner — allowing the company to resume operations without fear of consequences.
TikTok, which asserts having over 170 million users in the US alone, has long raised national security concerns, particularly about China accessing a vast amount of American data.
Despite Trump's shift in stance regarding the app, some Republicans and tech leaders remained firmly opposed to allowing it to return online in its current form, citing ongoing national security threats to the US.
“Unless and until TikTok is no longer controlled by Beijing, the national security threat that motivated the divestiture law hasn’t been addressed,” Evan Swarztrauber, a senior fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation, told The New York Post on Sunday.
Other tech experts slammed the app for creating a “manufactured sense of panic” by pulling the plug on its US operations before even the day was out, only to quickly restore them again.
“TikTok’s early shut down either came down to corporate incompetence or a deliberate PR stunt to encourage a manufactured sense of panic,” said Joel Thayer, a DC-based tech lawyer and president of the Digital Progress Institute. “Given it’s waffling, I’m assuming it’s the latter.
“The truth is that, even before Congress enacted the law, the US has told TikTok how to fix its blatant national security concerns for over five years, and the company did nothing,”
Thayer said. “Now, after it attempted to bring bogus First Amendment claims to delay the law’s enforcement and on the eve of its ban, it wants a pity party. Sorry, but the company is frankly an unsympathetic and disingenuous broker.”
US Senator Tom Cotton also expressed concern after reports indicated that the app was accessible again to millions of Americans.
Cotton wrote on X: “Any company that hosts, distributes, services, or otherwise facilitates communist-controlled TikTok could face hundreds of billions of dollars of ruinous liability under the law, not just from DOJ, but also under securities law, shareholder lawsuits, and state AGs. Think about it.”
Even though TikTok was up and running again for millions of Americans, the app remained unavailable for new customers to download at the App Store.
Previous reports about the app's permanent shutdown caused some American users to panic as they attempted to access it using a VPN, or virtual private network, which can deceive websites and apps into believing a user is located in another country.
However, VPNs were ineffective in helping Americans access their accounts late Saturday and into Sunday while the temporary ban was active, according to the Post.
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