About availability of TikTok and ByteDance Ltd. apps in the United States

Related ongoing thread:

TikTok goes dark in the US - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42753396 - Jan 2025 (312 comments)

The app was shutdown a couple of hours ago in the US and this was the message all TikTok users saw when they opened the app.[1]

The same guy who pushed for a ban massively last year, is going to save the app despite the security concerns he and most of our government said they had. If only we knew what happened in that classified briefing that made them vote together across party lines.

[1] https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxbusiness.com/foxbusiness.c...

Huh, I didn't realize Marvel Snap fell under that umbrella ban. I play that game during lunch breaks, it's a good card game with 2-3 minute matches, developed by Hearthstone luminaries (though it's never been clear to me what gameplay benefit you got from season passes, ie what their business model is. I was unaware of security concerns like TikTok that Tracks Everything it can)

Upon launching the game on iOS, the following message appears:

> Unfortunately, MARVEL SNAP is temporarily unavailable on US stores and is unavailable to play in the US.

> This outage is a surprise to us and wasn't planned.

> MARVEL SNAP isn't going anywhere. We're actively working on getting the game up as soon as possible and will update you once we have more to share.

I guess we'll see how temporary it is.

No opinion on TikTok itself as I've never used it, but I hope this wakes more people up to the fact that they're at the whim of the app gatekeepers and makes them demand the ability to run what they want on hardware they supposedly own.

Maybe we can update the title to reflect that its in America and not world wide?

There's a lot of debate in the media about whether or not the banning of bytedance/tiktok is an infringement of the 1st ammendment rights of users or if it represents a threat to the security of the country.

I just think that governments shouldn't be able to easily take down internet services like this. If it was just a normal web service with reasonably competent userbase, it could continue operating a hidden service over tor or some other mixnet. Instead, the government can effectively shut down the service by sending takedown orders to app stores and ISPs, which are naturally monopolistic and have little reason to stand up to regulators and act on behalf of their user's interests.

People have locked themselves into walled gardens and this is the end product. The town square has been privatized and controlled. Own your computers, people! Or someone else will.

Tens of thousands of companies using Tiktok shop or other Bytedance services is suddenly in-operable as well. Jobs loses, layoffs coming.

The power of digital dictatorship, USA government can kill a company, the entire ecosystem, all of the companies, users, entities relying on the digital application and service with stroke of pen. Every country and person on the planet should have vested interest to reduce choke points that can be exploited by USA government. So USA government shenanigans can't just ruin the invention you created, your jobs, your peaceful Sunday.

Ah, the great and classic play of "politician wants to insert his name into everything to get recognition when things get better". This is Modi's rice all over again.

Is this the first time we're getting a social media with no US-users? This is actually kinda interesting, as US-based content dominates a good chunk of international videos.

> But they can’t be redownloaded if deleted or restored if you move to a new device.

Amazing news! It's a plot to stop people buying new phones, hence saving the planet a little bit...

Going to be fun to see what an everyone-but-US social media platform looks like.

Twitter was fun for the few hours when it got hacked and they shutdown all of the "verified" accounts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Twitter_account_hijacking

Wonder how Meta's stock will do on Monday

TikTok users should’ve been posting/begging non-stop for ByteDance to sell their U.S. operations once the law passed.

That’s all the law was asking for.

ByteDance chose not to, and now everybody thinks the U.S. is banning apps “just because”.

Where is the “all ByteDance had to do was sell, and we’d still have our TikTokShops” outrage, which is where any outrage should be focused.

So people could just use a non-US VPN and a non-US Apple account to download the apps?

> But they can’t be redownloaded if deleted or restored if you move to a new device.

I understand not being able to redownload the app, but you can't restore the app if you move to a new device? I had no clue Apple checked which apps you were restoring. On Android you could get the apk and reinstall just fine without Google stopping you.

Even if you already have TikTok on you phone, you can’t use it now and get the following message:

> Sorry, TikTok isn't available right now

> A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S. Unfortunately, that means you can't use TikTok for now.

> 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!

me, Canadian, open tiktok for the first time in months and the 2nd reel is Canada vs US war & how China will help Canada. No way you can convince me this isn't a propaganda machine.

Apple should do a new note explaining why they put the apps back on the App Store without a changed law or a formal delay of the ban.

Is this only in the US?

I assume douyin is available in China?

So is TikTok not going to bother with a WebApp that connects to non-US servers?

Is the web capable of all native app functions yet? What’s missing?

In other news, people are flooding Hangout.fm music discovery social app

If Trump doesn’t enforce the ban, he will lose all credibility with his own base.

This is number 1 bullshit

Does this also remove the app from devices?

Great, maybe this will add more energy to making things browser based instead of app.