“Sorry, TikTok is currently unavailable,” the message read.
Hours before a federal law banning TikTok in the United States took effect on Sunday, the Chinese-owned social media app shut down and US users could no longer access videos on the platform. Instead, the app greeted them with a message that said “a law has been passed to ban TikTok.”
“We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution,” the release said. “Please stay tuned!”
In addition, TikTok’s sister app, Lemon8, stopped working and showed users in the US a message that it was “now unavailable”. Both TikTok and Lemon8 are owned by ByteDance, a Chinese internet giant. CapCut, a popular video editing app from ByteDance, was also unavailable.
Apple said it had removed TikTok and other ByteDance apps, including Lemon8, from its app store, and users reported that Google’s US app store had also removed TikTok. A search for apps in the App Store on Sunday brought up a new message: “TikTok and other ByteDance apps are not available in the country or region you are in.”
TikTok became unavailable after Friday’s Supreme Court ruling upheld a law requiring ByteDance to sell the app by Sunday or face a ban. The law was overwhelmingly passed by Congress last year and signed into law by President Biden. TikTok, which has faced national security concerns over its Chinese ties, believed it could win a legal challenge to the law, but failed.
The outage capped a chaotic stretch for TikTok, which has sought last-minute legal recourse from both the Biden administration and President-elect Donald J. Trump. Until Saturday night, no one — including the U.S. government — was quite sure what would happen to her when the law went into effect. The United States has never blocked an app used by tens of millions of Americans essentially overnight.
The law includes provisions that penalize app store operators like Apple and Google and internet hosting companies like Oracle for distributing or maintaining the TikTok app. Under the law, these companies face fines of up to $5,000 per user who accesses the app.
TikTok and Oracle did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Google declined to comment.
For TikTok and ByteDance, the development is a big blow. TikTok has roughly 170 million US users, who are some of the app’s most lucrative customers. In legal filings, TikTok said that even a temporary disappearance could bring it to its knees, with users and creators leaving for other platforms and never returning even after the ban was lifted.
The situation was further complicated by the law’s effective date, which fell on the last days of Mr. Biden’s presidency. The White House suggested on Saturday that the Biden administration would not begin closing the companies on Sunday.
“We see no reason for TikTok or other companies to take action in the next few days before the Trump administration takes office on Monday,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement. “We have made our position clear and straightforward: measures to implement this law will fall to the next administration.”
A White House spokesman did not respond to a request for comment after TikTok went offline. The Justice Department declined to comment.
Mr Trump said on Saturday that he would “most likely” find a way to extend TikTok by 90 days once he takes office on Monday, and on Sunday posted a statement on social media platform Truth Social that read: “SAVE TIKTOK! The law gives the president the ability to extend the sale deadline only if there is “significant progress” toward a deal that would put TikTok in the hands of a non-Chinese owner. It was unclear how that extension might work if the ban had already gone into effect.
It’s “really open to debate and litigation whether that will be possible when the law goes into effect,” said Sarah Kreps, director of the Technology Policy Institute at Cornell University. “We’re in more uncharted legal territory.”
Mr. Trump also hinted that he might sign an executive order to circumvent the ban on the app. TikTok CEO Shou Chew is expected to attend Mr Trump’s inauguration on Monday.
Mr Trump publicly reversed his stance on TikTok in March after he himself sought to block the company in the United States in 2020.
The mood on TikTok was somber on Saturday. Alix Earle, a content creator with 7.2 million followers who rose to fame through the app in 2022, posted tearful videos mourning the platform.
“I feel like I’m going through a broken heart,” Ms Earle wrote in one video. “For me, this platform is more than just an app or a job. I have so many memories here. I wrote every day for the last 6 years of my life. I shared my friends, family, relationships, personal struggles, secrets.”
Daniel Daks, chief executive of Palette Media, an agency that represents more than 230 social media stars, said he set up a “Zoom war room” with about 30 of his staff to answer questions as they flooded in.
“I talk to a lot of different creators, many of them I’ve worked with for five years and signed them when they worked at places like IHOP or Starbucks,” he wrote in a text message shortly after 11 p.m. Saturday. “I assure them everything will be fine.
Other users spent their last moments on the app recreating viral dances. The “For You” page was full of clips of users’ favorite trends and songs, many dating back to the early days of the pandemic, when the app’s popularity skyrocketed.
At 9 p.m. ET on Saturday, TikTok was showing US users a pop-up message saying the app would soon stop working. That original report did not mention Mr. Trump.
He said the law would “force us to temporarily disable our services.” Shortly after, TikTok went dark.
Late Saturday night, Ms. Earle found solace by appearing on a rival social media platform: Instagram.
“For this Saturday night, I didn’t expect it,” she said of what happened to TikTok while live-streaming on Instagram. RedNote, a Chinese video application that has become popular in recent days, would not become a long-term replacement, she said.
“We’re going to have to make it a little more fun here, that’s what I think,” she said on Instagram.
On Sunday morning in China, TikTok’s announcement to American users that it was suspending the service was a trending topic on Weibo, a popular X-like social media platform.
“This is a dark moment in the development of the Internet,” Hu Xijin, former editor-in-chief of the state-run Global Times newspaper, wrote on Weibo. The United States has set an example for “the entire Western world” to silence online voices in the name of national security, he wrote.
Diao Daming, a professor of international relations at Renmin University in China, called TikTok “the first big test that Trump 2.0 has to face.” Mr Trump’s moves on TikTok could test his relationship with “China hawks” in Washington, Mr Diao wrote in comments published in state media.
Claire Fu contributed reporting from Seoul. Nico Grant and Tripp Mickle contributed reporting from San Francisco. David McCabe contributed reporting from Washington.