Note: This article was also posted on our sister site Leblanguage.
I’m kinda hoping you may be a newcomer to these musings this morning because, if I’m to believe the self-reported statistics I’m being inundated with, there’s a heapin’ helpin’ of y’all who have one less online destination to wile away some of your Sunday morning with. CBS NEWS’ Caitlin Yilek was one of the many who has dropped the dour news over the past 24 hours, her most recent update coming a mere hour before this writing:
TikTok voluntarily shut down service in the U.S. just hours before a Sunday deadline, cutting off access to tens of millions of users after the Supreme Court this week upheld a law that effectively banned it over concerns about its ties to China.
The law passed by Congress last year gave TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance until Jan. 19 to divest from TikTok or be cut off from U.S. app stores and hosting services. TikTok said a sale wasn’t possible and challenged the law in court, but it was rejected by a unanimous Supreme Court on Friday.
The court’s decision said the divest-or-ban law does not violate the free speech rights of TikTok or its 170 million users in the U.S., agreeing with the government’s position that the platform could be used by China to collect a vast amount of sensitive information on Americans.
While the Biden administration said enforcement of the law would be left to the incoming Trump administration, the company itself took itself offline shortly before Sunday’s midnight deadline.
Users in the U.S. who opened the app late Saturday night were greeted with a message with the headline, “Sorry, TikTok isn’t available right now”.
And according to BUSINESS INSIDER’s Eve Crosbie, a few of the more influential of those tens of millions of users are having conniption fits over it:
Celebrities, influencers, and business leaders are reacting to the shutdown of TikTok in the US.
The likes of Elon Musk, Mark Cuban, James Charles, and Alix Earle have taken to other corners of the internet to react to the loss of the hit video-sharing app after it went dark for 170 million US users on Saturday.
Singer Lizzo, who had more than 25 million followers on TikTok, headed to Instagram to react to the news. “In Loving Memory, Takesha ‘TikTok’ Woods,” the post reads. “They really took her… MY SHAYLA,” Lizzo added in the caption, referencing a recent trend on the app.
In one video, Charles said: “I can’t believe I’m making an Instagram Reel right now because normally when something happens in the world, I go to TikTok.” “I don’t know what to do! Oh my god, I’ve already opened and closed the app probably six times already just to keep getting the same stupid warning message. This is so dystopian!” Charles added in a follow-up video.
OMG indeed, girlfriends. I don’t want to appear insensitive, since I fully acknowledge I’m anything but dead center of the target demo. I do have an account of my own and I follow a few private accounts–what little I know about crypto I’ve picked up from the ads I’m forced to endure. I’ve even posted a couple of videos of my own, albeit with the help of a friend’s far more age-appropriate daughter who gave me enough of a crash course on dubbing and filters where I’m at least savvy enough to determine that an awful lot of the content I see on the app is anything but truly authentic. Much of what at least I see is heavily produced and apparently scripted.
So let me assure you those of you Gen As in empathetic panic mode that you won’t have long to wait for your long national nightmare to end. Because the end game of all of this has, in my estimation, already been produced and scripted as well.
As FORBES’ staff (entire)?, headed by the appropriately-surnamed Antonio Pequeño IV, reported this morning:
President-elect Donald Trump has suggested he’ll allow TikTok to return when he takes office Monday by extending a deadline for China-based owner ByteDance to sell the app. Here is a brief timeline of events that have taken place since the “ban” went into effect:
12:30 p.m. EST, January 1–Trump signaled he would “most likely” issue a 90-day extension on the TikTok ban, saying an announcement would “probably” come Monday, though he did not definitively say whether he would do so.
11:00 p.m. EST, January 18–TikTok shut itself down in the United States at some point before 11 p.m. EST, greeting American users with a message that said “you can’t use TikTok for now” due to a “law banning TikTok” set to take effect Sunday—but the platform noted Trump “has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office.” (Read more here.)
7:03 a.m EST January 19–TikTok posts on his Truth Social platform, “SAVE TIKTOK,” as he weighs extending the ban for 90 days when he retakes office Monday, a move that could allow TikTok to return to the U.S. market temporarily—though the law only allows an extension if ByteDance is working toward a sale.
If you’re looking for possible white knights who might be interested in answering the plea of what apparently came from TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew, look no further than the peanut gallery at tomorrow’s indoor inauguration. Chew will be there, along with Musk and apparent MAGA newbie Mark Zuckerberg–you know, the guy that runs that other platform that already lured Charles and has “him” all a-twitter (pun intended) this morning.
Yilek also dropped a couple of other breadcrumbs of note:
Trump, who tried to ban TikTok during his first term over national security concerns, said Friday that he spoke with Chinese President Xi Jinping about TikTok. A Chinese summary of the call did not mention that it was a topic of discussion.
Barring a sale or Congress overturning the law, there’s no long-term certainty about TikTok’s future in the U.S. If Trump or a future president declines to enforce the law, companies like Apple and Google could still face steep fines in the future.
A) Just because the Chinese summary did not mention it doesn’t mean a discussion didn’t happen and B) the key words of the second nugget regarding the decision for Trump or a future president to enforce the law are crucial.
As several NBC News reporters observed Friday, there are already numerous federal laws in effect that effectively ban the legal sale of cannabis–that’s the primary reason a number of head shops are cash-only. But those shops do exist–in fact, they’re proliferating–and an awful lot find loopholes to allow you to swipe your debit card anyway. And the enforcement of those laws sure doesn’t seem to be happening anywhere I look.
So I’m of the firm belief that the last act of this melodrama has already been written. Among the hundreds of other “shock and awe” news items we expect to be seeing before Tuesday morning will likely be something to the effect of a reinstatement for TikTok–possibly with someone like Musk a designated “impartial” federal official to assure no incremental funny business like threats to national security occur–and that it will open the door for the likes of Lizzo and Charles to praise our new president and, more crucially, convert a few of their otherwise younger and theoretically more democratic followers to sing said new president’s praises–just as he begins to put into effect every other campaign promise made as quickly as possible, no matter how heinous or damaging it might be. Maybe Charles could even give some of his followers the idea of giving Fat Orange Jesus a chance even as he seeks to enforce laws that would directly impact their lives and how they live them because, after all, he “saved” Tik Tok!!
Anyway, you newbies who have found your way here today, that’s how I feel and I thank you for spending even a second of your freed-up time to consider it. You’ll be able to be back in your own walled garden pretty soon. You can bet your bottom ethereum on it.
Until next time…