It’s official: TikTok is no longer available in the US. Congress passed a bill in April requiring the app to divest from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, or face a nationwide ban on Jan. 19. TikTok didn’t even wait until today. Hours before Saturday turned to Sunday, the app denied US users access to videos on the platform. A message popped up: “We regret that a U.S. law banning TikTok will take effect on January 19 and force us to make our services temporarily unavailable. We’re working to restore our service in the U.S. as soon as possible.”
Originally, it was believed current users would still be able to access the app but wouldn’t get updates or bug fixes, eventually rendering the platform obsolete. Yet the company announced late Friday on X that the US version would “go dark” on Jan. 19 unless the Biden administration could…
