TikTok Places the Stress on Trump

• TikTok shut down on Saturday evening for its 170+ million US customers.
• A message seems on TikTok indicating that the corporate is counting on Donald Trump to save lots of the app.
• TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew not too long ago thanked Trump for his “dedication to work with us.”

TikTok stopped engaged on Saturday evening.

And in its last message — for now — to its 170 million-plus US customers, the app signifies who TikTok is counting on to save lots of the platform: President Donald Trump.

“A legislation banning TikTok has been enacted within the US. Sadly which means you’ll be able to’t use TikTok for now,” the message that popped up within the app on Saturday evening mentioned. “We’re lucky that President Trump has indicated that he’ll work with us on an answer to reinstate TikTok as soon as he takes workplace. Please keep tuned!”

Trump, set to take workplace on Monday, hasn’t dedicated to an answer to save lots of TikTok.

On Saturday, nevertheless, the president-elect instructed NBC Information that he’ll “probably” give TikTok a 90-day extension from the ban.

“I feel that may be, definitely, an choice that we have a look at. The 90-day extension is one thing that shall be probably executed, as a result of it is acceptable. You already know, it is acceptable. Now we have to take a look at it rigorously. It is a very large scenario,” Trump instructed the outlet.

Spokespeople for TikTok and Trump didn’t reply to a request for remark.

Within the days main as much as the ban, TikTok hasn’t been shy about pointing fingers at who has and hasn’t been useful within the firm’s efforts to maintain the app alive within the US.

On Friday, after the Biden administration mentioned it was leaving the enforcement of the ban as much as Trump, TikTok issued an announcement saying “each the Biden White Home and the Division of Justice have failed to offer the required readability and assurance to the service suppliers which can be integral to sustaining TikTok’s availability to over 170 million Individuals.”

White Home press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre mentioned in an announcement on Friday that President Joe Biden’s place was that TikTok ought to stay out there to US customers however underneath American possession.

TikTok hasn’t publicly expressed curiosity in promoting the app regardless of traders.

The identical day, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew praised Trump and thanked the president-elect “for his dedication to work with us to discover a answer that retains TikTok out there in the USA.”

That TikTok and its CEO are counting on Trump to save lots of the app represents a 180-degree shift from only a few years in the past, when Trump, in 2020, additionally needed to ban the platform.

Trump’s place on the ban modified on the marketing campaign path final yr and the president-elect in December made a last-ditch effort to save lots of the app by asking the Supreme Courtroom to place a maintain on the legislation.

On Saturday, earlier than the app shut down, the Biden administration known as TikTok’s assertion on going darkish a “stunt” and that there was “no motive for TikTok or different corporations to take actions within the subsequent few days earlier than the Trump Administration takes workplace on Monday.”