TikTok to
‘Go Dark’ on Sunday for Its 170 Million American Users
The
Chinese-owned company said it would cut off its services unless the U.S.
assures Apple, Google and other companies that they would not be punished for
hosting and distributing TikTok.
David McCabe
By David
McCabe
Reporting
from Washington.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/17/technology/17tiktok-goes-dark-sunday-apple-google.html
Published
Jan. 17, 2025
Updated Jan.
18, 2025, 12:10 a.m. ET
TikTok said
late Friday that its service would “go dark” for its 170 million American users
on Sunday because of a ban in the United States over fears that its Chinese
ownership poses a threat to national security.
The company
said in a statement that “unfortunately TikTok will be forced to go dark on
January 19” unless the Biden administration assures Apple, Google and other
companies that they would not be punished for delivering TikTok’s services in
the United States.
The
statement was TikTok’s latest attempt to pressure the administration to grant
it a reprieve from a law, upheld by the Supreme Court on Friday, that would
effectively ban its service starting Sunday.
The law says
that app stores and major cloud computing providers cannot deliver TikTok to
U.S. consumers unless the company is sold by its Chinese parent company,
ByteDance, to a non-Chinese owner.
TikTok did
not detail what would happen on Sunday, including whether it would voluntarily
shut itself down or simply cease to function because it would lose access to
services it needs to stay online.
The Biden
administration had earlier signaled that federal officials would not
immediately take action against Apple, Google and the other companies under the
law.
President
Biden signed the TikTok ban bill into law in April after it passed Congress
with bipartisan support. Lawmakers said Beijing could pressure ByteDance to
extract sensitive data on American users or influence TikTok content to serve
the Chinese government’s interests.
TikTok has
said the Chinese government has no role in the company and that it has spent
billions of dollars to address U.S. security concerns. ByteDance has
headquarters in Beijing and is subject to China’s control.
On Friday,
the Supreme Court accepted the government’s national security rationale for the
law, with the majority opinion pointing to “TikTok’s scale and susceptibility
to foreign adversary control, together with the vast swaths of sensitive data
the platform collects.”
Lisa Monaco,
the deputy attorney general, said in a statement after the Supreme Court’s
ruling that the process would play out “over time.” The White House press
secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said that enforcing the law would fall to the
incoming Trump administration, which takes office on Monday.
TikTok said
that those comments were not enough to satisfy other companies that they would
not run afoul of the law if they continued to distribute and maintain the app.
Those companies could face penalties as high as $5,000 for each TikTok user who
accesses the app inside the United States after the ban takes effect.
“The
statements issued today by both the Biden White House and the Department of
Justice have failed to provide the necessary clarity and assurance to the
service providers that are integral to maintaining TikTok’s availability to
over 170 million Americans,” the company said.
The loss of
that user base would be significant, but not the biggest TikTok has suffered.
In 2020, it was banned in India, where it had 200 million users. As in the
United States, the authorities in India cited national security concerns for
their decision against TikTok.
President-elect
Donald J. Trump has indicated his support for TikTok, but how his
administration will proceed on the matter is unclear. He said on social media
that the Supreme Court ruling must be respected.
“My decision
on TikTok will be made in the not too distant future,” Mr. Trump said, “but I
must have time to review the situation.”
David McCabe
is a Times reporter who covers the complex legal and policy issues created by
the digital economy and new technologies. More about David McCabe
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