Summary
TikTok became unavailable in the U.S. on January 20, 2025, after a federal ban targeting Chinese-owned ByteDance took effect.
Apple and Google removed TikTok and other ByteDance apps like CapCut and Lemon8 from their stores, and users saw a message stating the app was no longer accessible.
The law, signed by President Biden and upheld by the Supreme Court, requires ByteDance to sell TikTok or face shutdown.
Trump may grant a 90-day extension, but no buyers have emerged.
The ban sparked debates on censorship, free speech, and national security.
You’re right and the US can snatch those for sure but let’s say Tiktok wasn’t planning on bribing Trump and instead decided to be non compliant and force the US to execute the ban somehow. Other than Servers and Real estate, I’d imagine all liquid would be long gone into China and the continued data from users would outweigh the cost of those seized assets, even with many users not being able to manage the technological hurdle of loading a delisted app