Heartbroken TikTokers freak out as app goes dark for 170M users in US: ‘THIS IS A CRIME’

THE NEW YORK POST | Published January 19, 2025

Heartbroken TikTokers are going cuckoo.

Users of the now defunct social app nationwide are mourning its loss early Sunday, after the popular video-sharing platform went dark for its 170 million American users in the face of a legal US ban.

“ITS GONE TIKTOK IS GONE,” one user posted to X with a gif of someone nervously smoking.

 

A podcaster with more than 1.8 followers named iJustine helped lead the hysteria on X: “It’s been 15 minutes and I’m already going through TikTok withdrawals. THIS IS A CRIME.”

Influence iJustine said she was constantly updating her app on the now-unavailable platform.
Influence iJustine said she was constantly updating her app on the now-unavailable platform.X/ijustine

Mikayla Nogueira, a makeup influencer with 16 million TikTok followers, said she keeps clicking to open the app out of habit forgetting it doesn’t work.

“Mentally I am totally dissociating right now I’m crashing out BAD LOL,” she wrote in an Instagram story. “This can’t be f—g real.”

A message US TikTok users received after the app shut down in the United States.
A message US TikTok users received after the app shut down in the United States.
Influencer Mikayla Nogueira shared her final TikTok video on Saturday, hours before the ban.
Influencer Mikayla Nogueira shared her final TikTok video on Saturday, hours before the ban
Nogueira said she keeps clicking to open the app out of habit forgetting it doesn’t work.
Nogueira said she keeps clicking to open the app out of habit forgetting it doesn’t work.

The online freak out began after TikTok went dark in the US before 11 p.m., and users were greeted with a message that said: “Sorry TikTok isn’t available right now” and the site was otherwise unusable.

“TikTok was just removed from the App store,” Republican State Delegate Sarah Fields posted to X. “The US Government has unconstitutionally silenced millions of voters.”

Tiktok is gone and im already having withdrawals,” another user posted.

“It’s been 15 minutes and I’m already going through TikTok withdraws,” a podcaster with more than 1.8 followers said. “THIS IS A CRIME.”

“TIKTOK IS GONE NOOOOO,” another  user posted.

Before it went down, users began to express heartbreak and #SaveTikTok trended.

TikTok’s shutdown was widely anticipated after the Supreme Court on Friday unanimously upheld Congress’s law that required the platform’s Chinese-owned parent company to divest its stake in the company by Jan. 19 or face a national ban, rejecting TikTok’s appeal that the decision violates the First Amendment.

Under the law, service providers like Google and Apple must stop allowing new downloads of TikTok after the ban takes effect – with potential fines of $5,000 per user if they don’t comply.

As of midnight, the app was removed from Google and Apple stores.

Bipartisan members of Congress and the Justice Department have alleged that TikTok, owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, poses a national security threat.

TikTok has denied the allegations.

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testifies before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on March 23, 2024.
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testifies before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on March 23, 2024.Getty Images

 

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SOURCE: www.nypost.com

RELATED: Trump Floats a Solution to US TikTok Ban Scheduled to Start Sunday

REDSTATE | Published January 19, 2024

The clock is ticking on whether or not the Chinese government-connected social media platform TikTok will “go dark” in the U.S. over the weekend, after the Supreme Court ruled Friday to uphold the law banning the site starting Jan. 19. The high court announced it would take up the case as an emergency review, with TikTok arguing a ban would violate the First Amendment to the Constitution.

On Friday, TikTok warned in a statement that it would pull the plug Sunday, unless officials in the Biden administration step in and make a “definitive statement” reassuring the company it would not enforce the ban, which was overwhelmingly passed by Congress and signed by President Joe Biden:

“Unless the Biden Administration immediately provides a definitive statement to satisfy the most critical service providers assuring non-enforcement, unfortunately TikTok will be forced to go dark on January 19,” TikTok said.

The statement, issued just over a day before the ban is scheduled to go into effect, puts pressure on President Joe Biden in his final days in office to publicly decline to enforce a law that passed Congress swiftly with bipartisan support.

In response, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre released a statement reaffirming the position that Biden is leaving this law’s implementation to Trump, and calling out the social media platform’s threat as “a stunt”:

“We have seen the most recent statement from TikTok. It is a stunt, and we see no reason for TikTok or other companies to take actions in the next few days before the Trump Administration takes office on Monday,” she said.

“We have laid out our position clearly and straightforwardly: actions to implement this law will fall to the next administration. So TikTok and other companies should take up any concerns with them,” she said.

As we wrote previously, President-elect Donald Trump filed a last-minute amicus brief in the SCOTUS review of the case in late December 2024. And on Friday, he spoke in a phone call with Chinese President Xi, although it isn’t clear whether TikTok was a part of their discussion.

Now, in a new interview Saturday with NBC News’ Kristen Welker, Trump has floated a possible solution to the imminent ban–a 90-day extension of the deadline to either sell the platform or be banned:

Trump said he hadn’t made a final decision but was considering a 90-day extension of the Sunday deadline for TikTok’s China-based parent company to sell to a non-Chinese-buyer or face a U.S. ban.

“I think that would be, certainly, an option that we look at. The 90-day extension is something that will be most likely done, because it’s appropriate. You know, it’s appropriate. We have to look at it carefully. It’s a very big situation,” Trump said in the phone interview.

“If I decide to do that, I’ll probably announce it on Monday,” he said.

NBC News notes that the law passed in April 2024 does allow for “a 90-day extension under specific conditions.”

A Monday announcement, of course, will be too late to stop any interruption caused by TikTok going dark, if they choose to follow through with their statement.

As this is a developing story, RedState will keep you in the loop on any updates.

 

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SOURCE: www.redstate.com

 

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