TikTok is resuming services to its 170 million users in US after President-elect Donald Trump said he would issue an executive order to give the app a reprieve when he takes office on Monday.
On Saturday evening, the Chinese-owned app stopped working for American users, after a law banning it on national security grounds came into effect.
Trump, who had previously backed a ban of the platform, promised on Sunday to delay implementation of the law and allow more time for a deal to be made. TikTok then said that it was in the process of “restoring service”.
Soon after, the app started working again and a popup message to its millions of users thanked Trump by name. In a statement, the company thanked the incoming president for “providing the necessary clarity and assurance” and said it would work with Trump “on a long-term solution that keeps TikTok in the United States”.
TikTok CEO Shou Chew is expected to attend Trump’s inauguration Monday.
Posting on Truth Social, a social media platform he owns, Trump said on Sunday: “I’m asking companies not to let TikTok stay dark! I will issue an executive order on Monday to extend the period of time before the law’s prohibitions take effect, so that we can make a deal to protect our national security.”
TikTok’s parent company, Bytedance, previously ignored a law requiring it to sell its US operations to avoid a ban. The law was upheld by Supreme Court on Friday and went into effect on Sunday.
It is unclear what legal authority Trump will have to delay the implementation of a law that is already in effect. But it expected that his government will not enforce the ban if he issues an executive order.
It’s an about-face from his previous position. Trump had backed a TikTok ban, but has more recently professed a “warm spot” for the app, touting the billions of views he says his videos attracted on the platform during last year’s presidential campaign.
For its part, President Joe Biden’s administration had already said that it would not enforce the law in its last hours in office and instead allow the process to play out under the incoming Trump administration.
But TikTok had pulled its services anyway on Saturday evening, before the swift restoration of access on Sunday.
The short-form video platform is wildly popular among its many millions of US users. It has also proved a valuable tool for American political campaigns to reach younger voters.
Under the law passed last April, the US version of the app had to be removed from app stores and web-hosting services if its Chinese owner ByteDance did not sell its US operations.
TikTok had argued before the Supreme Court that the law violated free speech protections for its users in the country.
The law was passed with support from both Republicans and Democrats in Congress and was upheld unanimously by Supreme Court justices earlier this week.
The issue exposes a rift on a key national security issues between the president-elect and members of his own party. His pick for Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, had vocally supported the ban.
“TikTok extended the Chinese Communist Party’s power and influence into our own nation, right under our noses,” he said last April. But he seemed to defer to the president-elect when a journalist asked if he supported Trump’s efforts to restore the ban.
“If I’m confirmed as secretary of State, I’ll work for the president,” he told Punchbowl media last week.
After Trump intervened on Sunday morning, Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Tom Cotton, a Republican senator from Arkansas, broke with Trump by saying that any company that helps TikTok stay online would be breaking the law.
“Any company that hosts, distributes, services, or otherwise facilitates communist-controlled TikTok could face hundreds of billions of dollars of ruinous liability under the law, not just from DOJ, but also under securities law, shareholder lawsuits, and state AGs,” he wrote on social media.
An executive order that goes against the law could be fought in court.
Several states have also sued the platform, opening up the possibility to TikTok being banned by local jurisdictions, even if it is available nationally.
Although the platform went live again on Sunday for existing users, the question of whether third-parties – hosting platforms or app stores like Google or Apple – could support TikTok in the US remains murky, says University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias. The app had been removed from those stores in anticipation of the ban.
“It is murky,” he told the BBC.
In a post on Truth media, Trump promised to shield companies from liability, opening the door to TikTok being available on Apple and Google again.
“The order will also confirm that there will be no liability for any company that helped keep TikTok from going dark before my order,” the president-elect said on Truth Social Sunday.
But during the Supreme Court hearings, Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar was adamant that an executive order cannot change the law retroactively.
“Whatever the new president does, doesn’t change that reality for these companies,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor said during the hearings.
“That’s right,” Prelogar said.
Professor Tobias said that the law does include a provision that would allow the president to postpone the ban for up to 90 days, if he can show that the company is making substantial progress on alleviating national security issues. But, he said, it’s not clear whether those conditions have been met.
“The best thing Trump could do is work with Congress, and not potentially be in violation of the law or have any questions left hanging,” he said.
“I don’t know that we’re going to know a whole lot more until we see that executive order.”
