After bravely surviving 14 hours without TikTok, Americans in the United States are rejoicing in the ability to scroll mindlessly once more.
The beloved vertical-video app went dark for American users late on Saturday night (local time) after time ran out for Chinese company ByteDance to sell its US subsidiary to American, or at least, non-Chinese buyers. Although creators were spilling their deepest, darkest content secrets moments before the ban was instated, they didn’t have to wait too long before TikTok was usable again.
Just 14 hours later, the app was back up and running.
The restoration of the app in America has been attributed to President-elect Donald Trump, who vowed to issue an order after his inauguration on Tuesday to delay the enforcement of the ban against the Chinese-owned app on Saturday.
When American users opened the app early Monday, they were welcomed with a notification which read: “Thanks for your patience and support. As a result of President Trump’s efforts, TikTok is back in the US!”
In a statement, TikTok thanked Trump for “providing the necessary clarity and assurance to our service providers that they will face no penalties for providing TikTok to over 170 million Americans and allowing over 7 million small businesses to thrive”.
It also said the reversal of the ban was a “strong stand” against the First Amendment (freedom of speech) and “arbitrary censorship”.
Taking to his own social media app Truth Social, Trump said he would like the United States to own 50 per cent of the app in a joint venture with ByteDance.
“By doing this, we have TikTok, keep it in good hands,” Trump wrote.
US content creators have been rejoicing at the news — especially since it must have been a difficult night’s sleep without ritual nightly TikTok scrolling time.
While the masses are cheering, with many praising Trump for his efforts to reinstate the ban, others believe it was a big ol’ ploy to win the favour of younger constituents.
It really has been a bit of a bumpy ride for our friends in the US, hasn’t it? Either way, it’ll be interesting to see what happens long term.
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