Starting from the evening of Saturday and Sunday, January 17 and 18, 2025, TikTok users in the United States were greeted with a message saying that the platform had been banned. Those attempting to access the app to view videos or upload content were met with a notification saying: “Sorry, TikTok isn’t available right now. Close it immediately (Uninstall app now).”
This message essentially meant, “Sorry, TikTok is not available at the moment. Please uninstall it now.”
Users in the U.S. were informed that a new law had been enacted, prohibiting the use of TikTok, and they were told that the app’s owners would cooperate with the newly elected President, Donald Trump, to potentially reverse the ban.
One American citizen, Jef King, shared with UMUNSI.COM that TikTok was no longer working, and they did not know when it would be available again. He said, “I opened TikTok, and it asked me to uninstall the app from my phone. Right now, we have no idea when it will return.”
It appears that TikTok has been removed from both the Apple and Google App Stores, which is why users are no longer able to access the platform. Other apps, including CapCut, Lemon8, and Gauth, which function similarly to TikTok, have also been suspended.
This ban follows after President Joe Biden signed a law to prohibit the Chinese-owned TikTok, which is operated by ByteDance. The law was signed on Friday, and it’s part of growing concerns within the U.S. government about potential security risks posed by TikTok due to its Chinese ownership.
The U.S. government accuses ByteDance of potentially accessing user data of American citizens through the app, and has called for ByteDance to sell TikTok to non-Chinese entities in order to address these concerns.
Currently, TikTok had more than 170 million users in the United States before it was banned.
