(Washington) TikTok made its online application inaccessible on Saturday in the United States, carrying out its threat for lack of guarantees from the Biden government, while indicating that Donald Trump “will work on a solution” with the platform to “restore” it .
Updated at 12:22 a.m.
Thomas URBAIN with Julie JAMMOT in San Francisco
Agence France-Presse
“A law banning TikTok has been implemented in the United States,” a message says if you try to log in. “This means you can no longer use TikTok for now. »
“We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to restore TikTok once he takes office,” the text continues. “Stay tuned!” »
The message referred to a site which offered Tiktokers to download all of their data and content posted so far.
A platform that has become a social phenomenon in less than 10 years, extremely popular with young people, even very young Internet users, TikTok is no longer visible on the digital stores of Apple and Google in the United States.
Since Friday, TikTok had urged the Biden government to send a clear signal to internet providers and application store managers to dissuade them from suspending downloads and updates.
On Friday, the White House estimated that “law enforcement [devait] return to the next government, which will take office on Monday,” according to a statement from spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre.
This text was passed by Congress by a large majority in April 2024, forcing the Chinese parent company ByteDance to sell TikTok under penalty of ban.
On Saturday, Donald Trump declared that he would study the matter closely once he was inaugurated on Monday, and that a “90-day postponement [serait] probably decreed.”
PHOTO EVAN VUCCI, ARCHIVES ASSOCIATED PRESS
Donald Trump
Since Friday, TikTok had urged the Biden government to send a clear signal to internet providers and application store managers to dissuade them from suspending downloads and updates.
“If I decide, it will probably be Monday,” said the real estate developer, who tried during his first term to have TikTok banned, in vain, during an interview with NBC.
The law theoretically required providers to block downloads and updates during the night from Saturday to Sunday from midnight, under penalty of very heavy fines.
Karine Jean-Pierre described TikTok’s latest statements as a “maneuver”. “We see no reason for TikTok or other companies to act before the Trump administration takes office on Monday.”
-Refugees on YouTube
Seized by TikTok as a last resort, the American Supreme Court unanimously refused on Friday to suspend the law.
The nine senior judges considered that Congress’s concerns “in matters of national security” were “well-founded”.
American elected officials had justified the passage of the law by the need to prevent the Chinese authorities from accessing the data of American users or from manipulating opinion in the United States.
But if the platform was the subject of frank hostility from many American elected officials a year ago, the tide has since turned and a political consensus has emerged in recent days, favorable to the preservation of TikTok.
Postponing the entry into force of the law is only theoretically possible if tangible elements make a sale credible.
However, until now, ByteDance has always officially refused to sell its jewel, even if several investors have come forward.
Businessman Frank McCourt is ready to put $20 billion on the table with other partners, for the platform’s American activities, without its powerful algorithm.
PHOTO ANDREW KELLY, ARCHIVES REUTERS
Businessman Frank McCourt
On Saturday, the young artificial intelligence (AI) startup Perplexity AI submitted a merger proposal to ByteDance with the American subsidiary of TikTok, a source close to the matter told AFP, which would value the social network at least 50 billion dollars.
Donald Trump brought up TikTok during a phone conversation Friday with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
And the boss of the social network, Shou Chew, is one of the guests of honor for his inauguration ceremony on Monday.
In addition to TikTok, all ByteDance applications in the United States were taken offline, including another social network, Lemon8, to which beleaguered TikTokers had migrated.
Just minutes after the suspension of the famous platform, several content creators uploaded videos to YouTube to welcome the “refugees” of TikTok.
“Thank you for following me on YouTube,” said sensational press star Perez Hilton, who has nearly 470,000 subscribers on the Google subsidiary video site.
Others expressed their shock and sadness at seeing their favorite application disappear from the internet, perhaps temporarily.
