TikTok to go dark for 170M US users after app announces services will be temporarily unavailable

TikTok is set to go down — for now.The popular video-sharing app, used by 170 million Americans, was set to go dark late Saturday after TikTok’s Chinese-owned parent company announced late Saturday that they will make their services “temporarily unavailable.”“We regret that a U.S.law banning TikTok will take effect on January 19 and force us to make our services temporarily unavailable,” the company said in a message sent to users Saturday night.“We’re working to restore our service in the U.S.

as soon as possible, and we appreciate your support.Please say tuned.”It was not clear when exactly the app would go down, as it was still operating as of just after 9 p.m.

New York time.The announcement drew quick reaction online.“TIKTOK NOOOO!!!!” one X user posted with a video of a woman screaming.“TikTok has ended,” podcaster Ian Miles Cheong posted on the rival social media site shortly after the pop up message displayed on the app.“It’s happening,” another user posted on X.

“The TikTok ban in the USA is imminent yet I remain hopeful #savetiktok.”“Violating our right to free speech over hypotheticals that have never happened is gonna be the next war cry of the revolution,” another user posted on X.“170 million americans use tiktok which is over half the country.

#scotus better rethink this.Leave us alone.”The app’s future now rests in the hands of President-elect Donald Trump, who returns to the White House on Monday and has vowed to “save” the app, which he has credited with helping him win in November.Trump told NBC News on Saturday that he would “most likely” give TikTok a 90-day extension to work out a deal.“We have to look at it carefully,” Trump said.

“It’s a very big situation.”TikTok’s shutdown was widely anticipated after the Supreme Court upheld Congress’s law that required ByteDance to divest its stake in the company by Jan.19 or face a national ban.

TikTok unsuccessfully argued that t...