Just hours after TikTok went offline in the United States on Sunday (January 19), the popular video-sharing app is back, leaving many people scratching their heads.
According to reports, nothing can be done before President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Monday (January 20). But soon, the Chinese company confirmed in a statement posted on Twitter that it was restoring services and once again praised Trump for his contribution in restoring services.
As the TikTok policy tweet states, “We thank President Trump for providing the necessary clarity and assurance to our service providers that they will not be held responsible for providing TikTok to more than 170 million Americans and leaving more than 7 million small businesses in the dark. Thrive without facing any penalties.
It continued, “This is a strong stance for the First Amendment and against arbitrary censorship. We will work with President Trump on long-term solutions to keep TikTok in the United States.”
A new message on TikTok reads: “Welcome back! Thank you for your patience and support. Thanks to President Trump’s efforts, TikTok is back in the United States, and you can continue to create, share and discover all the things you love on TikTok.
TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, had nine months to either sell the platform’s U.S. operations or be banned from the country, but they failed to do so. In a post shared with Truth Social, Trump vowed to issue an executive order extending the deadline by 90 days.
People were confused and skeptical about the app’s sudden resurgence.
As one person noted: “Congratulations to the Democrats. The TikTok ban was initiated by Trump and passed the House and Senate along bipartisan lines, but Democrats allowed Trump to do so as President Biden signed the bill into law. It is absolute malfeasance on the part of the leadership to become a hero in politics.
Many believed it was nothing more than a publicity stunt to make Trump look good. Another person pointed out, “Oops, this TikTok ban is just a stunt for Trump to come in and ‘lift’ it and pretend he did something for us. Please stop falling for this crap.
Another comment reiterated, “As Trump prepares to ‘save’ TikTok, let’s not forget that this all started because Trump wanted to ban TikTok during his first term.” He broke it down. Then he got credit for fixing it. Trump’s life can be summed up like this,” while another added, “Crazy PR stunt. Praising Trump for reinstating TikTok one day after doing nothing to stop genocide and doing nothing to help end the Los Angeles fires.”
Regardless, TikTok’s 170 million users are back, but it’s unclear how long that will last. Please stay tuned for the continued development of Sage.
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