TikTok said it would be forced to “go dark” in the US on Sunday unless the government intervened before the ban.
In a statement late Friday, it said the White House and the Department of Justice “failed to provide the necessary clarity and assurance to service providers essential to maintaining TikTok’s availability”.
It said that unless the government intervenes quickly to ensure the video app will not be penalized for violating the ban, it will be forced to go dark on January 19.
The statement follows The decision of the Supreme Court in the beginning of Friday which proposed a law banning the app in the US unless its China-based parent company, ByteDance, sells the platform on Sunday.
Passed in April of last year, the law says that ByteDance must sell the US version of the platform to a neutral party to avoid a direct ban.
TikTok challenged the law, saying it violated free speech protections for its 170 million users in the country.
But the Supreme Court ruling means that the US version of the app will be removed from app stores and web hosting services unless a buyer is found in the coming days.
It was thought that the ban would not affect TikTok users who already have the app downloaded on their phones.
But the updates offered will not be available when the ban comes into effect, the application will eventually degrade and become unusable in the long run.
TikTok’s new statement on Friday, however, it suggests that it may not be immediately available to all existing users and those looking to download it.
Influencers and content creators have been posting videos on the app saying goodbye to their fans ahead of the upcoming ban.
One creator, Nicole Bloomgarden, he told the BBC The absence from TikTok will be equivalent to a large reduction in wages, and another, Erika Thompson, said that the educational content on the platform will be a “big loss” for the community.
Other users have been announcing where their content will be available to watch next, including Chinese video app Red Note, which has been underutilized by American users until now.
President Joe Biden’s term will end on Monday, and Donald Trump will be sworn in as the next president on that day. The White House previously said it would be up to the next president to enforce the law.
Trump has indicated his opposition to the ban, after supporting the measure. “I will make my decision on TikTok soon, but I have to have time to review the situation,” he said on Friday.
He also revealed that he spoke with Chinese President Xi Jinping and discussed TikTok, among other issues.
In December Trump said he had a “warm spot” for the app as it helped him with younger voters in the 2024 election.
Trump’s comments signaled a shift in his stance during his first term as president when he sought to pass similar legislation through an executive order.
ByteDance has vowed not to sell TikTok and said it plans to shut down the app’s operations in the US on Sunday unless there is relief.
Democratic and Republican lawmakers voted to block the video-sharing app last year, over concerns about its links to the Chinese government. TikTok has repeatedly said it does not share data with Beijing.
The possible ban comes at a time of heightened concern in the US about Chinese espionage.
Cybersecurity firms have suggested that the app is able to collect user data beyond what they watch on TikTok.
US Attorney General Merrick Garland said sovereign states should not have “unfettered access” to Americans’ data and that the decision prevented China from “arming TikTok to undermine US national security”.
China passed a law in 2017 forcing Chinese citizens living abroad to cooperate with its intelligence services.
But Beijing has denied that it pressures companies to collect data on its behalf and criticized the ban. TikTok has repeatedly insisted that it has not been asked for its data.
The app argued that the law threatened freedom of expression and would affect its users, advertisers, content creators and employees. TikTok has 7,000 US employees.
24 April 2024: Biden signs the bipartisan TikTok bill, which gave the Chinese parent company, ByteDance, six months to sell its controlling stake or be banned from the US.
7 May 2024: TikTok files a lawsuit that aims to block the law, calling it an “extraordinary intrusion on free speech rights”.
2 August 2024: The US government is suing TikTok, accusing the social media company of illegally collecting children’s information and failing to respond when parents try to delete their children’s accounts.
6 December 2024: TikTok’s bid to overturn a law that would see it banned or sold in the US from early 2025 has been rejected by a federal appeals court.
27 December 2024: President-elect Donald Trump is asking the US Supreme Court to delay the upcoming ban while he works on a “political decision”.
10 January 2025: Nine Supreme Court justices heard from lawyers representing TikTok and content creators that the ban would be a violation of free speech protections for the platform’s more than 170 million users in the US.
17 January 2025: The US Supreme Court upholds a law that could lead to TikTok being shut down within days due to national security concerns.
19 January 2025: The deadline for TikTok to sell its US stake or face a ban. TikTok has announced that it will “go dark” on this day.
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