Washington:
TikTok plans to shut down U.S. operations of the social media app used by 170 million Americans on Sunday, when the federal ban goes into effect unless there is a last-minute reprieve, the company said in a statement. A person familiar with the matter said this on Wednesday.
The Washington Post reported that President-elect Donald Trump, whose term begins the day after the ban begins, is considering issuing an executive order suspending enforcement of the shutdown for 60 to 90 days. The paper did not say how President Trump could legally do so.
A law signed in April requires Chinese parent company ByteDance to ban new downloads of TikTok on Apple or Google's app stores if it fails to sell the site.
Users who have downloaded TikTok will theoretically be able to continue using the app, but starting Sunday, U.S. companies will be prohibited from providing services that allow it to be distributed, maintained or updated.
There was no immediate comment from President Trump's transition team. President Trump said he needed time after taking office to seek a “political solution” to the issue.
“TikTok itself is a great platform,” Mike Walz, President Trump's incoming national security adviser, told Fox News on Wednesday. “We're going to find a way to protect people's data while preserving it.”
President Joe Biden has no plans to intervene to block the ban in the final days of his term if the Supreme Court fails to act, a White House official told Reuters on Wednesday. He added that Biden cannot legally intervene unless there is a credible plan for ByteDance to sell TikTok.
U.S. Sen. Ed Markey on Wednesday called for unanimous consent to extend the deadline for ByteDance to sell TikTok by 270 days, but Republican Sen. Tom Cotton blocked the proposal.
If a ban occurs, TikTok plans for users who try to open the app to see a pop-up message directing them to a website with information about the ban, the company said, anonymously as the matter is private. According to the people involved, they requested.
TikTok's lawyer Noel Francisco told the Supreme Court last week: “We're going to go dark. The platform will basically be shut down.”
The company will also offer an option to download all data so users can record their personal information, officials said.
The U.S. Supreme Court is currently deciding whether to uphold the law and ban TikTok on Sunday, overturn the law, or suspend it to give the court time to make its decision.
Shutting down TikTok in the U.S. could make it unavailable to users in many other countries, the company said in a court filing last month. That's not possible, as hundreds of service providers in the U.S. help make the platform available to TikTok users around the world. I won't be doing that starting Sunday.
TikTok said in a court filing that the order was needed to “avoid service interruptions to tens of millions of TikTok users outside the United States.”
TikTok said the ban would ultimately render the app unusable, noting in the filing that “data centers would almost certainly conclude that they cannot store” TikTok's code, content, and data. did.
The closure is aimed at protecting TikTok service providers from legal liability and making it easier to resume operations if President-elect Donald Trump chooses to lift the ban, officials said.
One of the sources said no further planning was needed to shut down those services, noting that as of this week, most operations were continuing as usual. If the ban is later lifted, TikTok could resume service to U.S. users in a relatively short period of time, the people said.
TikTok and its Chinese parent company ByteDance did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment.
US technology magazine The Information first reported the news late Tuesday.
Privately held ByteDance is about 60% owned by institutional investors including BlackRock and General Atlantic, with its founders and employees each owning 20%. We have more than 7,000 employees in the United States.
President Joe Biden signed legislation last April requiring ByteDance to sell its U.S. assets by Jan. 19 or face a nationwide ban. The Supreme Court seemed willing to uphold the law last week despite requests from President Trump and lawmakers for an extension.
TikTok and ByteDance are seeking at least a delay in implementing the law, saying it violates First Amendment protections against government abridging free speech rights.
TikTok said in a court filing last month that it estimates that one-third of its 170 million U.S. users would lose access to the platform if the ban lasted a month.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
