If you’ve had better things to do than follow internet drama on a Saturday night, let me catch you up: TikTok went offline Saturday evening, with parent company ByteDance praising Trump. This afternoon, it came back, with parent company ByteDance praising Trump. This is how embarrassing things are going to be for the next four years.
On Saturday, TikTok users were met with an in-app message announcing that the app was unavailable and reading in part, “We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office. Please stay tuned.” Users didn’t have to stay tuned long, or even wait for Trump to actually take office; today, the company announced,
In agreement with our service providers, TikTok is in the process of restoring service. We thank President Trump for providing the necessary clarity and assurance to our service providers that they will face no penalties providing TikTok to over 170 million Americans and allowing over 7 million small businesses to thrive.
It’s a strong stand for the First Amendment and against arbitrary censorship. We will work with President Trump on a long-term solution that keeps TikTok in the United States.
(Update 4:10pm-- Users are also seeing Trump thanked in their now-functioning app, with a message reading "As a result of President Trump's efforts, TikTok is back in the U.S.! You can continue to create, share, and discover all the things you love on TikTok.")
While Google and Apple did in fact remove TikTok from their stores (alongside, to many players’ surprise, mobile game Marvel Snap, which is published by a ByteDance subsidiary), no one seemed particularly keen on enforcing the rule, which required ByteDance to shut TikTok down in the US when it didn’t find a US buyer for the app by January 19. A White House statement on Friday noted that “actions to implement the law simply must fall to the next Administration.” On Saturday, the White House added that “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;” Trump said that day that he would likely issue a 90-day extension on the sale deadline once he took office. The initial idea to ban TikTok was actually Trump’s idea back in 2020, though some Republicans seem to be doing their best to memory-hole all that.
Basically, no one really had to do anything here, and yet a lot of things happened, or felt like they happened. It’s the perfect situation for Trump: a lot of chaos and high emotion, with lots of fingers to point and credit to claim. Regular people faced losing something that matters to them; those who haven’t been closely following the whole long journey to this moment might be easily convinced that it’s the cruel fault of Biden and the Democrats, who can be cast as out-of-touch elites who have been consistently letting them down. (It doesn’t help that this is, to some extent, true.) Trump could throw around bombastic rhetoric and big promises, aided by companies kissing his ring and parroting his talking points. Neither Trump nor ByteDance did this for the good of everyday TikTok users, but it could feel like a win for them; they get to go back to finding community and making dance videos, while Trump gets to boost his image and ByteDance, like every other big company, gets to curry favor with his administration. Trump has even been able to tie his inauguration proceedings into TikTok’s return, writing on TruthSocial that “Americans deserve to see our exciting Inauguration on Monday, as well as other events and conversations.”
The only thing more embarrassing than having to live through all this is if it actually works, if Trump comes out of this weekend having tricked even one more regular person into thinking he's on their side. I understand why some people would want to believe this narrative, and I understand why the last four years might make them susceptible to it. But hopefully even more people will see it as a warning for how much more bullshit is headed our way, a reminder of how clear-eyed we'll need to be to resist politicians and companies punting us around in their self-serving football game.
Republicans are already bickering over it all, with Speaker Johnson claiming he’ll uphold the ban and several Republicans praising “Amazon, Apple, Google, and Microsoft for following the law.” Maybe we’ll at least get some funny TikToks out of whatever happens next.
