TikTok restored service for users in the United States on Sunday, the date of 2025-01-19, after a brief shutdown linked to a federal law requiring its China-based parent company, ByteDance, to separate from the platform’s U.S. operations or face a ban.
The interruption left millions of U.S. users unable to access the short-video app and platform after TikTok said it shut down late Saturday in response to the statute. Users trying to open the app saw a notice saying TikTok was not available. By Sunday afternoon, access had returned for users who already had the app, with a message crediting President-elect Donald Trump’s efforts and saying TikTok was back in the United States.
The episode did not fully restore TikTok’s U.S. distribution. Apple and Google removed the app from their digital stores, and the app remained unavailable for download there on Sunday afternoon. The removals mattered because the law allowed steep penalties for companies that continued to support, distribute or host the platform in violation of its requirements.
The law was passed in April with broad bipartisan support and took effect Sunday. It required ByteDance to cut ties with TikTok’s U.S. business because of national security concerns. The statute also allowed a sitting president to grant a 90-day extension if a viable sale was underway. ByteDance has said it would not sell, although investors had made offers.
Trump said on Truth Social that he planned to issue an executive order on his first day in office to extend the period before the law’s prohibitions were enforced and to assure service providers they would not face liability for helping keep TikTok online before the order. TikTok said on X that the steps Trump described gave its service providers the clarity and assurance they needed to avoid penalties.
The legal path for that pledge was uncertain. The U.S. Supreme Court had unanimously upheld the ban on Friday, and the law came into force before Trump’s return to the White House. Rep. Mike Gallagher, the Republican lawmaker from Wisconsin who authored the bill, said the extension period had closed and argued that any extension would require presidential certification of legally binding divestiture documents.
Other legal observers cited by AP differed on how much room Trump might have. University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias said Trump could argue that the statute’s language applied to any president. Constitutional and business law attorney Kirk McGill said he believed Trump lacked authority to suspend the ban, while also noting that the immediate dispute was likely to play out politically before courts could act.
The shutdown highlighted TikTok’s importance to U.S. users, creators and small businesses that rely on the platform for income. It also underscored the unresolved clash between national security concerns about TikTok’s China ties and the platform’s role as a major communications and entertainment service.
