TikTok Officially Unavailable in the US!

TECH NEWS – But that’s not the end of the story, because the President of the United States, who will be inaugurated (again) tomorrow, has already announced that he will try to make the Chinese platform ByteDance available again in the country, maybe already on his first day.

 

Yesterday, the US banhammer hit TikTok, which was used by around 170 million people in the country, and the app was removed from platforms as a federal law went into effect. At around 10:45pm ET, an error message popped up explaining why the platform, called Douyin in China, was no longer available in the US: “A law banning TikTok has been passed in the U.S. Unfortunately, this means you can’t use TikTok for the time being. Fortunately, President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to bring TikTok back once he takes office. Please stay tuned.”

According to Reuters, other apps owned by ByteDance (such as video-cutting app Capcut and lifestyle social app Lemon8) have also become unavailable in the US. Donald Trump, who will be inaugurated tomorrow, told NBC that his administration will probably get a 90-day extension because it’s appropriate and will make some sort of announcement on Monday if there is still a loophole for TikTok.

While it’s a fact that TikTok has ties to the Chinese Communist Party, which means it can be used for propaganda purposes to influence U.S. users (as well), let’s not forget that many may have seen the platform as a livelihood (even if only in part). We are not talking about influencers here, but also, for example, a music producer who had a work on the site and it became a hit.

Meanwhile, users switched to another (even more propaganda-oriented, given the name) app, Xiaohongshu, or Red Note (it means little red book, in reference to Mao Zedong…). The US search engine startup Perprexity AI on Saturday made an offer to merge with ByteDance to create an app for uploading short videos, and an unnamed source told Reuters that the merger could force a new entity, with additional partners.

So the story is not over yet!

Source: WCCFTech

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Anikó, our news editor and communication manager, is more interested in the business side of the gaming industry. She worked at banks, and she has a vast knowledge of business life. Still, she likes puzzle and story-oriented games, like Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments, which is her favourite title. She also played The Sims 3, but after accidentally killing a whole sim family, swore not to play it again. (For our office address, email and phone number check out our IMPRESSUM)

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