SCIENCE & TECH: TikTok says it will go dark Sunday unless Biden admin assures service providers they won’t be punished

A mock funeral was held for TikTok in New York City on Friday after the Supreme Court upheld the app's forced sale.

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TikTok said the popular video-sharing platform will go dark on its 170 million American users on Sunday unless the Biden administration can guarantee service providers won’t be punished for operating the app when the ban takes effect. 

The statement came hours after the Supreme Court unanimously upheld a law forcing the app to be divested from its Chinese parent company in two days and rejecting TikTok’s appeal that the decision violates the First Amendment.

Under the law, services 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.


A mock funeral was held for TikTok in New York City on Friday after the Supreme Court upheld the app’s forced sale. Getty Images

“The statements issued today by both the Biden White House and the Department of Justice have failed to provide the necessary clarity and assurance to the service providers that are integral to maintaining TikTok’s availability to over 170 million Americans,” the company said in a statement Friday night.

“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.”

President Biden has since punted enforcement of the law to President-elect Donald Trump, who formally takes office on Monday and has vowed to save the app. 

Members of Congress and the Justice Department have alleged that TikTok, which is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, poses a national security threat – capable of secretly manipulating content via its recommended algorithm and mass data collections such as location-tracking, among other risks. 

TikTok has denied the allegations. 


The app wants assurances that service providers will not be penalized if the app is still functioning past Sunday. AP

A law passed by Congress last April gave the platform a 120-day timeline to divest its stake entirely from its parent company or face a ban on Jan. 19. 

If the app goes offline, users would be redirected to a website with details of the ban. 

Though the platform would remain usable for a period for those who already downloaded it, services would gradually degrade due to a lack of product support and updates.

Trump – once a vocal critic of TikTok who initially led the efforts to block the app – is said to be mulling an executive order that would further delay enforcement of the law for 60 to 90 days while he attempts to facilitate a sale to a US buyer. 

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew is expected to attend Trump’s inauguration on Monday and will be seated alongside other tech titans such as Elon Musk and Apple’s Tim Cook.



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