TikTok Restores Service Without Change After Trump Statement Of Support

TikTok said on Sunday that it was restoring service after it briefly went offline on Saturday in response to a new U.S. law that forces its parent company, ByteDance, to be completely divested from TikTok or else be banned in the U.S.

“In agreement with our service providers, TikTok is in the process of restoring service,” TikTok said in a statement. “We thank President Trump for providing the necessary clarity and assurance to our service providers that they will face no penalties providing TikTok to over 170 million Americans and allowing over 7 million small businesses to thrive.”

TikTok claimed that the issue was about “the First Amendment” and “arbitrary censorship” when, in reality, it’s about the company harvesting the data of Americans that can be used to weaponize algorithms to impact how Americans think and behave in line with interests of communist China.

The statement comes after Trump, who led the charge to ban TikTok during his first term in office, posted on social media that he was asking companies to let TikTok stay online.

Trump said that he wants the United States to own 50% of TikTok and said that allowing China to still own the other half would not be a problem.

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“I will issue an executive order on Monday to extend the period of time before the law’s prohibitions take effect, so that we can make a deal to protect our national security,” he said. “The order will also confirm that there will be no liability for any company that helped keep TikTok from going dark before my order.”

However, even if Trump issues an executive order on TikTok, there are certain conditions that must be met to allow for the 90-day extension, which include the president having to certify to Congress that:

• (A) a path to executing a qualified divestiture has been identified with respect to such application;
• (B) evidence of significant progress toward executing such qualified divestiture has been produced with respect to such application; and
• (C) there are in place the relevant binding legal agreements to enable execution of such qualified divestiture during the period of such extension.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton (R-AR) slammed TikTok’s statement in a post on X.

“Any company that hosts, distributes, services, or otherwise facilitates communist-controlled TikTok could face hundreds of billions of dollars of ruinous liability under the law, not just from DOJ, but also under securities law, shareholder lawsuits, and state AGs,” Cotton posted on X. “Think about it.”