TikTok Goes Dark for Americans Hours Before Ban Takes Place
UPDATE: TikTok Came Back on Line in the US at 1:00 PM on Sunday, January 19, 2025
by Elizabeth Weibel, Breitbart.com, January 19, 2024
American TikTok users were faced with a message that the app was unavailable Sunday and they would not be able to use it, hours before a ban was set to take effect.
“Sorry, TikTok isn’t available right now,” a message pops up on the social media app when users in the United States open the app.
The message further explains that due to a “law banning TikTok” being enacted in the U.S., Americans are unable to use the app. However, the message continues to praise President-elect Donald Trump for having “indicated that he will work” with TikTok to find “a solution to reinstate TikTok.”
“A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S.,” the message on TikTok reads. “Unfortunately, that means you can’t use TikTok for now. We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office. Please stay tuned!”
🚨 #BREAKING: TikTok has OFFICIALLY been banned in the United States
— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) January 19, 2025
All 170+ MILLION users now receive a message when opening the app praising President Trump for indicating he will work with them on a fix when he takes office.
WOW. pic.twitter.com/J2J5C3CdCM
One in Four US Small Businesses use TikTok to sell their products. Over half of marketers (50.1%) consider TikTok the most profitable platform for influencers. All of them are now shut off.
Trump has previously expressed that he has a “warm spot” in his heart for TikTok, citing how he “won youth by 34 points” in the presidential election. Trump has also indicated that “TikTok had an impact” on him winning the election and stated his administration would look into it.
During a recent interview with NBC News, Trump revealed that he would “most likely” give TikTok a “90-day extension” to avoid a ban.
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Perplexity AI makes a bid to merge with TikTok U.S.
By Haden Feiled, CNBC.Com, January 18, 2025
Perplexity AI officially made a play for TikTok on Saturday, submitting a bid to its parent company, ByteDance, to create a new merged entity combining Perplexity, TikTok U.S. and new capital partners, CNBC has learned.
The new structure would allow for most of ByteDance’s existing investors to retain their equity stakes and would bring more video to Perplexity, according to a source familiar with the situation, who asked to remain anonymous due to the confidential nature of the potential deal.
Perplexity AI, the artificial intelligence search engine startup competing with OpenAI and Google, started 2024 with a roughly $500 million valuation and ended the year with a valuation of about $9 billion, after attracting increasing investor interest amid the generative AI boom — as well as controversy over plagiarism accusations.
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Though any potential transaction between Perplexity AI and ByteDance would likely take months to complete — and TikTok has said the app will “go dark” in the U.S. on Sunday unless the Biden administration assures it won’t punish Apple, Google and other service providers for hosting it — President-elect Donald Trump told NBC News on Saturday that he “most likely” would give TikTok 90 more days to work out a deal after he is sworn into office on Monday.
In a video posted to TikTok on Friday, CEO Shou Zi Chew said, “I want to thank President Trump for his commitment to work with us to find a solution that keeps TikTok available in the United States.”
ByteDance has publicly implied it will not sell TikTok U.S., which is part of why Perplexity AI believes it has a shot with its bid — since the proposal is a merger rather than a sale, the source told CNBC.
The source believes a fair price is “well north of $50 billion” but that the final number attached to the proposal will be decided, in part, by which of ByteDance’s existing shareholders want to remain part of the new entity and which want to cash out.
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