TikTok goes dark in the United States

NEW YORK — TikTok’s app was removed from prominent app stores on Saturday just before a federal law that would have banned the popular social media platform was scheduled to go into effect.

By 10:50 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, the app was not found on Apple and Google’s app stores, which are prohibited from offering the platform under a law that required TikTok’s China-based parent company, ByteDance, to sell the platform or face a U.S. ban.

When users opened the TikTok app on Saturday evening, they encountered a pop-up message from the company that prevented them from scrolling on videos.

“A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S.,” the message said. “Unfortunately that means you can’t use TikTok for now.”

“We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office,” the message said. “Please stay tuned!”

Before that announcement went out, the company had said in another message to users that its service would be “temporarily unavailable” and told them it's working to restore its U.S. service “as soon as possible.”

The federal law, that was signed by President Joe Biden last year, required ByteDance to divest its stake in TikTok's U.S. platform or face a ban. ByteDance had nine months to sell the U.S. operation to an approved buyer. The company, and TikTok, chose to take legal action against the law and ultimately lost their fight at the Supreme Court on Friday.

Under the statute, mobile app stores are barred from offering TikTok and internet hosting services are prohibited from delivering the service to American users.

Both White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco had said that the Biden administration would leave the law’s implementation to President-elect Donald Trump given that his inauguration falls the day after the ban takes effect.

But TikTok said after the court ruling on Friday that it “will be forced to go dark” if the administration didn’t provide a “definitive statement” to the companies that deliver its service in the U.S.

However, Jean-Pierre called TikTok’s demand a “stunt” and said there was no reason for TikTok or other companies “to take actions in the next few days before the Trump administration takes office.”

In an interview with NBC News on Saturday, Trump said he was thinking about giving TikTok a 90-day extension that would allow it to continue operating.

The federal law allows the sitting president to extend the deadline by 90 days if a sale is in progress. But no clear buyers have emerged, and ByteDance has previously said it won’t sell TikTok.

If such an extension happens, Trump said it would “probably” be announced Monday.

On Saturday, artificial intelligence startup Perplexity AI submitted a proposal to ByteDance to create a new entity that merges Perplexity with TikTok's U.S. business, according to a person familiar with the matter. If successful, the new structure would also include other investors and allow ByteDance’s existing shareholders to retain their stake in the company, the person said.

Perplexity is not asking to purchase the ByteDance algorithm that feeds TikTok users videos based on their interests and has made the platform such a phenomenon.

Other investors have also been eyeing TikTok. “Shark Tank” star Kevin O’Leary recently said a consortium of investors that he and billionaire Frank McCourt put together offered ByteDance $20 billion in cash. Trump’s former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin also said last year that he was putting together an investor group to buy TikTok.