MK sports Koreastar Coco Gauff writes the message RIP TikTok USA on the camera following her victory over Switzerland's Belinda Bencic in their women's singles match on day eight of the Australian Open tennis tournament in Melbourne on January 19, 2025. Photo: VCG" src="https://www.globaltimes.cn/Portals/0/attachment/2025/2025-01-19/c52cbaca-11a8-4778-afa1-826227e178a5.jpeg" />

US tennis star Coco Gauff writes the message "RIP TikTok USA" on the camera following her victory in her women's singles match on day eight of the Australian Open tennis tournament in Melbourne on January 19, 2025. Photo: VCG

TikTok went dark late Saturday in US, as it suspended app within US and its app has been removed from prominent app stores in the US, the Xinhua News Agency reported on Sunday.

TikTok pushed a notification for its users titled "Sorry, TikTok isn't available right now."

"A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the US. 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!" it said.

Trump wrote on Truth Social on Sunday "SAVE TIKTOK!" In another post, Trump wrote that "l will issue an executive order on Monday to extend the period of time before the law's prohibitions take effect."

On Friday, the US Supreme Court upheld the law forcing ByteDance, the Chinese parent company of TikTok, to sell the app to an American company or face a nationwide ban starting on Sunday. The White House responded shortly after the Supreme Court's ruling, shifting responsibility to TikTok and Trump, according to Xinhua.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre released a statement on Friday regarding TikTok saying that "Given the sheer fact of timing, this Administration recognizes that actions to implement the law simply must fall to the next Administration, which takes office on Monday."

At a crossroads

Earlier on Saturday, US President-elect Donald Trump told NBC News' Meet the Press moderator Kristen Welker in a phone interview that he will "most likely" give TikTok a 90-day reprieve from the ban after he takes office on Monday.

"I think that would be, certainly, an option that we look at. The 90-day extension is something that will be most likely done, because it's appropriate. You know, it's appropriate. We have to look at it carefully. It's a very big situation," Trump said in the phone interview, according to NBC News.

"If I decide to do that, I'll probably announce it on Monday," Trump said.

President Joe Biden signed the law in April 2024, which requires the app's parent company, ByteDance, to sell it or face a nationwide prohibition in the US. Under the law, the president can grant a one-time extension of 90 days if he certifies to Congress that three things are true: There's a path to divestiture, there's "significant progress" toward executing it, and "there are in place the relevant binding legal agreements to enable execution of such qualified divestiture during the period of such extension," according to NBC News.

If Trump gives TikTok a 90-day reprieve on Monday, the app may reappear in the US, said Zhou Mi, a senior research fellow at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation.

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew said on Friday that "we will do everything in our power to ensure our platform thrives" for 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, Xinhua reported.

Will of people decides

He Weiwen, a senior fellow at the Center for China and Globalization, told the Global Times on Sunday that the US ban suggests a Cold War mentality, which ignores the real needs of the US people. "TikTok users in the US account for around half the country's population. The ban damages normal online exchanges of these people and hurts their interests," He said.

On the same day, multiple apps under ByteDance discontinued their service in the US, according to Xinhua. Affected apps include video editing app CapCut and lifestyle social media Lemon8, Reuters reported.

"The frequent use of national security as an excuse to crack down on Chinese companies only gives the impression that US policy is becoming more and more uncertain, which is contrary to the freedom of expression that the country has always claimed to advocate," Zhou told the Global Times on Sunday. 

US Senator Rand Paul criticized the TikTok ban as a violation of the First Amendment, The Hill reported on Saturday. "One hundred seventy million Americans express themselves on TikTok on a daily basis, and it's just wrong for the government to ban it," Paul said. "Most of the reasons the government banned it were based on accusations, not proof."

Soon after TikTok went offline, some US TikTok users expressed their emotions on other social media platforms, such as X on Sunday, with one post saying "scrolling twitter because TikTok is gone but every tweet is about TikTok," which received over 113,000 likes. 

Moreover, US tennis star Coco Gauff mourned the suspension of TikTok within the US on Sunday, writing on a TV camera lens "RIP TikTok USA" and drawing a broken heart after winning a match at the Australian Open.

Several days ahead of the US ban on January 19, a large number of TikTok users swarmed to Xiaohongshu, or RedNote, overwhelming the Chinese lifestyle social media app. 

A user with ID in the US posted on Xiaohongshu on Sunday that "Guys I'm already having withdrawals... I had to physically hide the app from myself to stop habitually opening it." Another user with ID in the US said that "I'm like actually crying, just laid down and fully relished I can't scroll myself till I fall asleep." "Praying TikTok comes back," another user posted.

According to a statement released by the official Xiaohongshu account in its app, the platform launched a translation feature on Sunday. The statement said it had recently noticed many new users and welcomes them to the community. To make it easier for everyone to chat and share on Xiaohongshu, they quickly launched a translation feature, allowing users to click the "Translate" button to view translated content. 

Zhou said that the economies, societies and cultures of China and the US have become deeply intertwined, and banning one social media app cannot block people-to-people exchanges between the two countries.

"The will of the people decides. The people of the two countries have become more willing to improve their understanding of each other and to deepen their exchanges and cooperation," Zhou noted, urging some US politicians to promote better China-US civil exchanges, instead of being bent on narrow political considerations.