The Current Status of the TikTok ‘Ban'

The TikTok ban has been a rollercoaster, to say the least. Is the app banned? Is the app saved? What the hell is going on? These are the questions everyone's asking, and there are answers—at least to some of them.

Let's break the last few days down, to catch everyone up to speed with that's going on with TikTok.

How did we get here?

To very briefly recap, the government has been gunning to ban TikTok since the first Trump administration. Last year, Congress and the Biden administration passed a law that would effectively ban TikTok in the United States, unless ByteDance divested its stake in the app by Jan. 19. ByteDance insisted it wouldn't sell, and as the deadline approached, things got heated. TikTok went to the Supreme Court to argue the ban violated the company's First Amendment rights, but SCOTUS ruled in favor of the government.

With this final defeat, TikTok swore it'd go dark unless the Biden administration stepped in to block the ban. The administration, however, punted the problem to the incoming Trump administration, saying the Biden administration would not enforce the law, and that TikTok had no reason to act before then. Meanwhile, we learned Trump was reportedly considering signing an executive order to extend the timeline for the ban, which seemed to line with the Biden administration's position.

Saturday, Jan. 18

That brings us to Saturday, one day before the ban was set to take effect. All eyes were on the situation, since no one really knew what would happen once we reached Jan. 19 in the U.S. The law is quite clear that, once the deadline passed, no companies could distribute, maintain, or update TikTok or its services, so it was reasonable to think TikTok would disappear from app stores in the country.

However, the language of the law was less clear about whether TikTok could continue operating in the U.S. at all. Companies could not provide internet hosting services to distribute, maintain, or update TikTok, but does that include hosting as well? The Biden administration didn't seem to think so, which is why they pushed back on TikTok's threats to go dark. According to the administration, TikTok should continue operating as normal (albeit, without being able to serve new users), and wait for the Trump administration to deal with the situation.

Well, TikTok didn't do that. Instead, the app went totally dark Saturday night, at least an hour and a half before the deadline was official. Users trying to access the app were greeted by a message informing them the app was banned in their country, and they could not use it at the moment. Shortly after, however, the pop-up was updated, to include an appeal to incoming President Trump: "A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S. 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. Please stay tuned!" Pretty subtle, TikTok.

With the app now dark in the U.S., users turned to alternative methods to try to access TikTok. I had written about how a VPN should theoretically get around the ban, since it would make your internet traffic look as if it was coming from a country that allowed the app. However, TikTok anticipated users doing this, and decided to block traffic from American accounts entirely. The only way I was able to access TikTok via VPN was through Safari, and it was very particular about which countries would work. (Routing my traffic through Japan, for example, returned an error, but when I used Romania, it worked fine.)

Sunday, Jan. 19

TikTok remained dark through Sunday morning and into the early afternoon. It wasn't clear what the timeline would look like: Trump was being sworn in the next day, so would TikTok wait until a theoretical executive order before returning service?

The answer was no: One day before Trump took office, he started talking about how "we have to save [TikTok]." Evidently, that was enough for TikTok, which started coming back online for American users starting around 1 p.m. ET. The whole affair lasted fewer than 15 hours, but it showed how TikTok felt about both the outgoing Biden administration and the incoming Trump administration.

Monday, Jan. 20

Of course, Trump took the oath of office on Monday, returning to the White House and reassuming the power of the presidency. (In attendance was TikTok CEO Shou Chew.) As part of a flurry of executive orders following the inauguration, Trump issued an order to delay TikTok's ban by 75 days. The order directs the Justice Department not to enforce the law during this time period, in an effort to find a buyer for TikTok. ByteDance and China both have remained steadfast that TikTok would not be sold, but following Trump's inauguration, the latter has shown potential interest in selling.

Tuesday, Jan. 21

The situation is largely the same as of Tuesday, minus one key event: Trump seems to be threatening China with tariffs if they get in the way of a deal to buy TikTok. Specifically, Trump said, “because we’d put tariffs on China…I’m not saying we would, but we certainly could do that.”

Where do we go from here?

This unprecedented situation has certainly been volatile. It was Trump himself who wanted to ban TikTok during his first term. Now, he and TikTok want to spin the situation to make Trump a "savior."

But TikTok is far from out of the woods here. Apple and Google have not restored TikTok (or any of its other properties, like CapCut), and it doesn't seem clear they will while the company's legal situation is in flux. Speaking of which, the TikTok "ban" is still the law: It's truly unclear what power Trump has as president to extend the timeline here, when the law went into effect a day before he took office. The law gives the president the ability to extend the deadline by 90 days if ByteDance was actively looking to divest, but the deadline passed, so what does that mean for Trump?

Trump has said he wants a U.S. company to have a 50% stake in TikTok. That's not as strict as the original law, which wants a U.S.-based company to control the app outright. Perhaps that type of deal would appeal more to ByteDance or the Chinese government, who would still regain half of the assets.

We now know what a TikTok ban in the U.S. looks like: TikTok goes dark, users can't access their accounts if they were created in this country, and VPNs mainly seem to work on the web. The question now is whether we'll see a true ban happen later this year, or whether we'll see ByteDance sell some or all of the app instead.

I'll keep this article updated with the latest news regarding TikTok's ban. For now, you can continue to use it as normal—assuming you downloaded the app before Saturday night.