Supreme Court Upholds TikTok Ban, App Goes Dark for Americans

The popular social media platform TikTok has officially gone dark for Americans with the Supreme Court ruling last week upheld banning the app unless the platform cuts ties with its China-based parent company ByteDance. This included the apps CapCut and Lemon8, also owned by the same company.

Saturday, January 18, the app went dark, no longer allowing users in America to access the platform, but a message popped up on the screen the next day with a promise to restore the app.

“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.”

TikTok is now waiting on a “definitive” announcement by Trump before users will be allowed to access the app again.

If users deleted the app after it went dark and tried to re-download it they received a message stating that “downloads for this particular app are paused due to current US legal requirements,” however some Americans are reporting that the app is “partially” restored for them with a welcome back message thanking Trump.

Trump stated that he would issue an executive order first thing Monday morning after his inauguration, however some officials are claiming that there a legal basis doesn’t exist to extend the ban past Sunday.

More than 170 million Americans have the app downloaded according to online sources and more than 6 million small businesses rely on the app to sell their product. With the impending shutdown of the app, people Nationwide have stated that the ban will hurt their income, leaving millions of content creators with an uncertain future.

The Enterprise and Martin Post reached out to local readers for their thoughts on the ban with many flooding to the comment section express their opinions.

“I think it’s taking away our freedom of speech, ways to help with anxiety, means of income and much more. I used TikTok as a way of extra income but not my main income,” one reader stated.

“We have too much power and knowledge on this app! They can’t let us have that. And it definitely has helped a ton of small businesses in ways Meta could never could,” another reader said.

Many readers expressed opinions that other apps also use and sell your data and information citing, Temu, Wish, X, Instagram and Facebook as doing so, but there are currently no restrictions on those apps.

Other readers stated that the ban stems from a way for the Government to ban free speech and as a way for them to make money off the app, but there were some readers who stated that the ban won’t affect them one way or another, even stating they supported the ban.

“I work for a company that is partly owned by a Chinese company. They have banned us from downloading it on our work phones. That tells me a lot. I never used it anyway,” one reader said.

“I believe the Supreme Court has more knowledge than any of us on all this,” one reader stated.

With over 120 comments received, the majority of locals in Weakley County stated that the ban was unfair and that they were not in support.

Stay tuned and follow us on Facebook to learn the latest on this ban.