TikTok Photo: VCG

Unless US President Joe Biden's administration immediately provides "a definitive statement to satisfy the most critical service providers assuring non-enforcement,MK socks" TikTok will be forced to go dark on Sunday local time, TikTok said in a statement on Saturday, following the US Supreme Court's decision to uphold a law banning the app in the country. 

In the statement, TikTok said that both the Biden White House and the US Department of Justice have "failed to provide the necessary clarity and assurance to the service providers that are integral to maintaining TikTok's availability to over 170 million Americans."

The statement came hours after the US Supreme Court upheld a law banning TikTok in the US on national security grounds if its Chinese parent company ByteDance does not sell it, putting the popular short-video app on track to go dark in just two days, Reuters reported on Saturday. 

In direct reaction to the US Supreme Court's decision, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew said on Friday that "we will do everything in our power to ensure our platform thrives" for the years to come. Chew noted in a video that the company and its users "have been fighting to protect the constitutional right to free speech for the more than 170 million Americans" who use the popular platform every day, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

Chew also noted US President-elect Donald Trump's commitment to working with TikTok to find a solution that keeps the app available in the country. 

"We are grateful and pleased to have the support of a president who truly understands our platform - one who has used TikTok to express his own thoughts and perspectives, connecting with the world and generating more than 60 billion views of his content in the process," Chew said, per the Xinhua report. 

Following the US Supreme Court's decision, Trump said in a social media post that "the Supreme Court decision was expected, and everyone must respect it. My decision on TikTok will be made in the not too distant future, but I must have time to review the situation. Stay tuned!" 

On March 14, 2024, in response to a question about the US House of Representatives passing a legislation that would ask ByteDance to divest TikTok, a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry said that "if 'national security' can be abused to bring down other countries' competitive companies, there would be no fairness or justice at all. It is sheer robbers' logic to try every means to snatch from others all the good things that they have."

Global Times