TikTok is considering making the app unusable in the United States on Sunday, taking the divest-or-be-banned law a step further than is required.
Starting Sunday, U.S. app stores will no longer carry TikTok, meaning users will no longer be able to download it or update the app. The company, however, is weighing making the app unusable to U.S. users starting that day.
If it is banned, TikTok plans that users attempting to open the app will see a pop-up message directing them to a website with information about the ban, according to Reuters. TikTok is also planning to give its users an option to download all their data to take a record of their personal information.
President Joe Biden’s administration has been weighing options to keep the social media platform available to users beyond its ban date, according to NBC News.
“Americans shouldn’t expect to see TikTok suddenly banned on Sunday,” an administration official told the outlet.
TikTok was banned in India on June 29, 2020, and users found the app unusable the next day, with the app shutting down overnight. Opening the TikTok app in India results in a notification that reads, “Our services are not available in your country or region.”
Some U.S. users have flocked to the Chinese app Xiaohongshu, or RedNote in English. On Tuesday, RedNote was the most downloaded free app in the U.S. Apple store.
Some Americans on Xiaohongshu have posted content under the hashtag “TikTokrefugee.” The hashtag had been viewed 100 million times and sparked about 2.5 million discussion threads on the app by Tuesday, according to the New York Times.
“How funny would it be if they ban TikTok and we all just move over to this Chinese app,” one TikTok creator, Manimatana Lee, posted to her TikTok account on Monday.
TikTok personnel said that despite the looming ban and the app’s blackout in the country, its employees based in the U.S. will still have a job.
“Your employment, pay and benefits are secure, and our offices will remain open, even if this situation hasn’t been resolved before the Jan. 19 deadline,” Nicky Raghavan, TikTok’s global head of human resources, wrote in an email to employees obtained by the New York Times. “The bill is not written in a way that impacts the entities through which you are employed, only the U.S. user experience.”
“Our leadership team remains laser focused on planning for various scenarios and continuing to plan the way forward,” Raghavan noted.
In May 2024, Biden signed a law that would ban TikTok from U.S. app stores on Jan. 19 if the app’s parent company, ByteDance, did not sell TikTok. Executives at ByteDance have repeatedly said they are not willing to sell the app. For years, lawmakers on Capitol Hill had warned of Chinese influence on TikTok and passed the bill threatening to ban it, attached to foreign aid spending, with bipartisan support last April.
This week, Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA), who voted in favor of the ban, sought unanimous consent to extend the deadline for ByteDance to divest TikTok by 270 days, but Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) blocked the proposal.
In 2020, then-President Donald Trump attempted to ban the app via executive order, but he has switched his tune in recent months and has expressed his support for keeping the app around. Trump is considering issuing an executive order to suspend enforcement of a shutdown for 60 to 90 days.
TikTok CEO Shou Chew has also been invited to attend the president-elect’s inauguration and sit in “a position of honor.” The ban is set to take place the day before Trump becomes president again.
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This month, the Supreme Court heard an argument to halt the TikTok ban on free speech concerns, but the high court appeared poised to hold the ban on national security concerns. Justices have not yet ruled on the matter, three days before the ban takes hold.
“We go dark,” TikTok lawyer Noel Francisco told the Supreme Court last week. “Essentially, the platform shuts down.”