Summary
-
TikTok ceased operations in the United States on Saturday, January 18th.
-
The reason for this is the TikTok ban recently confirmed by the Supreme Court.
-
President Trump has hinted that he may try to bring the app back, but no return date has been announced.
The highly successful social media/video app TikTok Stopped working in the US as of Saturday, January 18th at 10:00 PM CST. TikTok, the successor to Musical.ly, enjoyed enormous popularity during the pandemic and quickly became one of the most used apps worldwide. Hundreds of millions of people use TikTok every day, but unfortunately the app has been a political target for its fans for years.
TikTok was developed by the Chinese company ByteDance, which is accused by some politicians of collecting user data for the Chinese government. TikTok itself has vehemently denied these allegations, but this has not prevented the case against TikTok from being heard all the way to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the proposed TikTok ban could continue. President Biden indicated that his administration would not enforce the ban, and new President Trump has indicated he may take action to keep the app online. Despite this, TikTok is no longer available in the US at the time of writing.

Related
Pokemon is saying goodbye to TikTok in the most heartbreaking way
An official Pokemon TikTok account is saying goodbye to its fans in the US as the social media app's nationwide ban expires.
TikTok stopped working around 10pm CST on Saturday, January 18th. The TikTok ban in the US has rendered the app unusable, meaning users can no longer scroll through their For Your Page, access their saved videos, or talk to their friends. Currently, when users try to use TikTok in the US, they are greeted with the message “Sorry, TikTok is currently unavailable.” A law has been passed in the USA banning TikTok. Unfortunately, that means you won't be able to use it. For now, we're fortunate in that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reintroduce TikTok once he takes office.
Is TikTok down right now?
-
TikTok stopped working in the US as of January 18th.
Before TikTok was banned, one proposed solution was for ByteDance to sell the app to an American company. That didn't happen, and so it's unclear what solution will be found to reintroduce the app if Trump actually tries to do so. Meanwhile, angry TikTok users have found their own ways to protest the ban. There have been personal protests, but users have also started downloading Rednote en masse. For those in the know, Rednote is very similar to TikTok, but is aimed directly at users in China.
Unfortunately, TikTok is currently unavailable. A law banning TikTok has been passed in the USA. Unfortunately, this means you won't be able to use TikTok for the time being. We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reintroduce TikTok after he takes office. Please stay tuned!
Whether Trump manages to bring TikTok back remains to be seen, but it will definitely be interesting to see what happens in the coming days. Meanwhile, MrBeast has teased that he has been in talks with billionaires about the possibility of buying TikTok themselves, but it's hard to say whether something like that will actually happen. Currently, TikTok users in the US cannot use the app No return date has been announced.