TikTok Places the Strain on Trump

• TikTok shut down on Saturday evening for its 170+ million US customers.
• A message seems on TikTok indicating that the corporate is counting on Donald Trump to save lots of the app.
• TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew lately thanked Trump for his “dedication to work with us.”

TikTok stopped engaged on Saturday evening.

And in its remaining message — for now — to its 170 million-plus US customers, the app signifies who TikTok is counting on to save lots of the platform: President Donald Trump.

“A regulation banning TikTok has been enacted within the US. Sadly meaning you possibly can’t use TikTok for now,” the message that popped up within the app on Saturday evening mentioned. “We’re lucky that President Trump has indicated that he’ll work with us on an answer to reinstate TikTok as soon as he takes workplace. Please keep tuned!”

Trump, set to take workplace on Monday, hasn’t dedicated to an answer to save lots of TikTok.

On Saturday, nevertheless, the president-elect advised NBC Information that he’ll “most probably” give TikTok a 90-day extension from the ban.

“I feel that may be, definitely, an possibility that we take a look at. The 90-day extension is one thing that will likely be most probably performed, as a result of it is applicable. You recognize, it is applicable. We have now to have a look at it fastidiously. It is a very large state of affairs,” Trump advised the outlet.

Spokespeople for TikTok and Trump didn’t reply to a request for remark.

Within the days main as much as the ban, TikTok hasn’t been shy about pointing fingers at who has and hasn’t been useful within the firm’s efforts to maintain the app alive within the US.

On Friday, after the Biden administration mentioned it was leaving the enforcement of the ban as much as Trump, TikTok issued an announcement saying “each the Biden White Home and the Division of Justice have failed to offer the required readability and assurance to the service suppliers which might be integral to sustaining TikTok’s availability to over 170 million Individuals.”

White Home press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre mentioned in an announcement on Friday that President Joe Biden’s place was that TikTok ought to stay obtainable to US customers however below American possession.

TikTok hasn’t publicly expressed curiosity in promoting the app regardless of buyers.

The identical day, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew praised Trump and thanked the president-elect “for his dedication to work with us to discover a answer that retains TikTok obtainable in the USA.”

That TikTok and its CEO are counting on Trump to save lots of the app represents a 180-degree shift from just some years in the past, when Trump, in 2020, additionally needed to ban the platform.

Trump’s place on the ban modified on the marketing campaign path final 12 months and the president-elect in December made a last-ditch effort to save lots of the app by asking the Supreme Court docket to place a maintain on the regulation.

On Saturday, earlier than the app shut down, the Biden administration known as TikTok’s assertion on going darkish a “stunt” and that there was “no motive for TikTok or different firms to take actions within the subsequent few days earlier than the Trump Administration takes workplace on Monday.”