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President-Elect Donald Trump’s apparent plans to save TikTok, the video-based social media app that he once tried to ban during his past stay in office, seem to be taking shape on the eve of his second inauguration. A victory rally scheduled for one day before the swearing-in ceremony will see some of his supporters in attendance, and sources indicate that group will include TikTok‘s chief executive officer.
TikTok went dark in the United States during the evening of January 18, hours before a Congressional order enacting a nationwide ban of the app would have taken effect. Although many of its 170 million daily users in the United States were prepared to say goodbye to TikTok, some functions of the app mysteriously began working again less than a day later.
Marvel Snap Has Also Been Banned Alongside TikTok
Despite being developed by an American company, Marvel Snap gets pulled from the U.S. due to the same law that banned TikTok.
A report from CNN indicates that Trump plans to sign an executive order on his first day in office that would move the ban back by 90 days. Likewise, TikTok has confirmed that it is in the process of restoring its app for users in the United States. A vote by Congress in the spring of 2024 saw a majority of both Democrats and Republicans requiring the app be banned across the country if TikTok’s China-based owner, ByteDance, did not sell the company by January 19, 2025. ByteDance still owns TikTok, and after several attempts to reverse Congress’ decision through the courts, the Supreme Court’s ruling to uphold the TikTok ban earlier this week had seemed like it would be the end of the last-ditch effort to preserve service in the United States before Trump’s intervention.