A message welcoming users back and thanking Trump on the TikTok app on a smartphone arranged in Arlington, Virginia, US, on Jan 19, 2025. TikTok started restoring service in the US on Sunday, after a whipsaw of events that saw the video app make good on a threat to go dark, only to have Trump halt enforcement of the law and announce he would give its owners another three months to find a buyer. — Bloomberg
“I can’t believe I’m making an Instagram reel to complain about this right now because normally when anything happens in the world, I go to TikTok,” influencer James Charles said in a video late Saturday night (Jan 18).
Charles, who has 20 million followers on Instagram, was reacting to the notification that users in the United States had received earlier in the evening informing them that the app would be going dark.
“We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution,” the message said. “Please stay tuned!”
As the shutdown approached, people seemed unclear of what would happen and when.
“Non-Americans, can you still see American accounts on TikTok or are they gone?” Tineke Younger, a chef and content creator, asked her followers on social platform X.
Her videos, multiple users replied, were still visible.
In the days before the ban took effect, even after the Supreme Court’s ruling that the service must be sold to a non-Chinese company or face a ban in the United States, many TikTok users remained hopeful that the app would be spared and that US users would be able to continue using it without interruption. Others tried to cope with humour, like TikTok creators who threw funerals – complete with makeshift caskets and eulogies – for the platform.
But by Saturday night in the United States, it was clear those hopes were, at least briefly, in vain. Alix Earle, a popular TikTok creator, headed straight over to Instagram to livestream with her followers and process the news. Earle joked she had tried to learn Mandarin to use RedNote, a Chinese video app that has become popular in recent days. She had already been banned from that app, she said.
Some relief finally came Sunday when TikTok announced that, after assurances from President-elect Donald Trump, it was working to restore the service to US users.
Before that announcement, TikTok users had been looking for a workaround to the ban in the form of virtual private networks, or VPNs, which encrypt a user’s location. On Sunday, demand for VPNs in the US spiked 827%, according to Top10VPN, a VPN review site.
The assumption from some was that most TikTok creators would simply shift their content to Instagram Reels, but not everyone was thrilled with that option.
“It was just so disappointing,” Casey Lewis, who writes the youth culture newsletter After School, said of using Reels after the ban went into effect. “TikTok, the algorithm, just knows me and gives me everything I want to see.”
The top free apps in Apple’s app store after the ban were, instead, other TikTok competitors: Red Note and Likee, a short-form video app with its own “For You” page. The third most downloaded app was a VPN service.
The complaints about the shutdown were not limited to TikTok creators. Among those voicing support for TikTok after the ban was Elon Musk, a close ally of Trump, who said he was against the ban even as he noted it would still be a direct competitor to his own social media site, X.
“The current situation where TikTok is allowed to operate in America, but X is not allowed to operate in China is unbalanced,” Musk wrote. “Something needs to change.”
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., went as far as joining TikTok as a form of “civil disobedience” on Saturday, urging the app’s fans to take action in a video posted to the platform and to X.
“To the 170 million Americans who use TikTok: Don’t give up, don’t give in,” Paul said. “Resist.”
The calls for TikTok’s return appear to have been answered.
TikTok posted on X on Sunday that it was “in the process of restoring service” after a pledge from Trump that no one would face financial penalties for hosting TikTok as the service tried to find a way to comply with the law.
“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,” the statement said. – ©2025 The New York Times Company
