“Sorry, TikTok is currently unavailable,” the message read.
Hours before the federal law banning TikTok from the United States took effect on Sunday, the Chinese social media app was killed and US users could no longer access videos on the platform. Instead, the app greeted them with a message saying “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 message said. “Please stay tuned!”
In addition, TikTok’s sister app, Lemon8, stopped working and showed US users a message saying it is “currently unavailable.” Both TikTok and Lemon8 are owned by ByteDance, a Chinese internet giant.
Apple said it removed TikTok and other ByteDance apps, including Lemon8, from its app store, and users said Google’s US app store also removed TikTok.
TikTok was unavailable after the Supreme Court’s ruling on Friday upheld the law, which calls on 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 ties to China, believed it could win a legal challenge to the law, but failed.
The blackout capped a chaotic stretch for TikTok, which had made last-minute appeals to both the Biden administration and President-elect Donald J. Trump to get out of the law. As of Saturday night, no one — including the U.S. government — was quite sure what would happen when the law went into effect. The United States has never banned an app used by tens of millions of Americans virtually overnight.
The law has a provision that penalizes app store operators like Apple and Google and web hosting companies like Oracle for distributing or maintaining the TikTok app. Under the law, these companies face penalties of up to $5,000 per user who accesses the app.
TikTok, Apple and Oracle did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Google declined to comment.
For TikTok and ByteDance, the developments are a significant blow. TikTok has around 170 million users in the US, who are some of the app’s most profitable customers. In legal filings, TikTok said even a temporary shutdown could bring it to its knees, with users and creators leaving for other platforms and never returning even if the ban is lifted.
The situation was further complicated by the start date of the law falling in the last days of Mr. Biden. A White House spokeswoman suggested on Saturday that the Biden administration would not begin fining companies on Sunday.
“We see no reason for TikTok or other companies to take action in the coming 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 unambiguous: actions to implement this law will fall to the next government.”
Representatives for the White House and the Justice Department did not respond to requests for comment after TikTok was taken offline.
Mr. Trump said on Saturday that he would “probably” find a way to give TikTok a 90-day extension once he takes office on Monday. The law gives the president the ability to extend the deadline for a sale only if there is “substantial 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 was already in place.
Mr. Trump has also indicated that he could sign an executive order to override the ban on the app. TikTok CEO Shou Chew is expected to attend the inauguration of Mr. Trump on Monday.
On Saturday, the mood on TikTok was somber. Alix Earle, a content creator with 7.2 million followers who rose to fame on the app in 2022, posted tearful videos mourning the platform.
“I feel like I’m going through my heart,” Ms Earle wrote in a video. “This platform is more than an app or a job for me. I have so many memories here. I have posted every day for the last 6 years of my life. I’ve shared my friends, my family, my relationships, my personal struggles, my secrets.”
Other users spent their final moments on the app recreating viral dances. The “For You” page was filled with montages of users’ favorite trends and songs, many dating back to the early days of the pandemic, when the app grew in popularity.
At 9 p.m. eastern on Saturday night, TikTok was showing US users a pop-up message saying the app would soon stop working.
He said the law would “force us to make our services temporarily unavailable.” Soon after, TikTok went dark.
Late Saturday night, Ms. Earl found solace in appearing on a rival social media platform: Instagram.
“I just didn’t expect this for this Saturday night,” he said of what happened on TikTok as he streamed live on Instagram. RedNote, a Chinese video app that has become popular in recent days, will not become a long-term replacement, he said.
“We should just make it a little more fun here, that’s what I think,” he said of Instagram.
On Sunday morning in China, TikTok’s notification to US users that it would suspend the service was a trending topic on Weibo, a popular social media platform similar to X.
“This is a dark moment in the development of the Internet,” Hu Xijin, former editor-in-chief of the state-run Global Times, wrote on Weibo. The United States had set the example for “the entire Western world” to silence voices online in the name of national security, he wrote.
Diao Daming, a professor of international relations at Renmin University of China, called TikTok “the first big test that Trump 2.0 has to face.” The actions of Mr. Trump on TikTok could test his relationship with “China hawks” in Washington, wrote Mr. Diao in a comment 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.
