TikTok goes dark in the US and voices hope that Trump will help it return

TikTok officially stopped working in the United States. This Saturday, January 18, the Chinese-born social networking app announced that it is "unavailable" on U.S. soil a few hours before parent company ByteDance's deadline to find a buyer under legislation banning the platform in the country.

"Sorry, Tik Tok isn't available right now," the platform told its users in an automated message posted on the app. "A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S. Unfortunately, that means you can't use TikTok for now."

In the message, TikTok appealed to President-elect Donald Trump, who recently announced that he is evaluating the option of extending the ban deadline by 90 days through an executive order to "carefully" analyze the platform's future.

"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!" said TikTok's message.

The TikTok ban comes several months after President Joe Biden signed a bill against the platform that won a solid bipartisan majority, due to concerns about the platform's ties to China and its access to large volumes of Americans' personal data.

Now the future of TikTok, which has 170 million users in the United States, will be left in the hands of Trump, who during the presidential campaign changed his stance on the app, stating that he would like it to continue operating in the United States despite criticism from Republican hawks.