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TikTok stopped working in the United States late on Saturday and disappeared from Apple and Google app stores ahead of a law that takes effect on Sunday requiring the shutdown of the platform used by 170 million Americans.
President-elect Donald Trump has said he would “most likely” give TikTok a 90-day reprieve from the ban after he takes office on Monday, a promise TikTok cited in a notice posted to users on the app.
“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,” the message notified users trying to use the app late on Saturday night.
Other apps owned by ByteDance, including video editing app CapCut and lifestyle social app Lemon8, were also offline and unavailable in US app stores as of late Saturday.
What is Lemon8?
ByteDance launched Lemon8 in Japan in 2020, and it’s seen a steady increase in popularity, hitting the U.S. market in February 2023.
It’s dominated by lifestyle content. Posts highlighted on the app’s homepage include, “How to become a 5 am girly” and “How to save $500 in a month.”
At the start of this year, it was ranked the number one free app on Apple’s app store.
The app’s U.S. downloads increased 340 percent between June and August last year compared to 2023, according to data compiled by market research company Sensor Tower.
By comparison, TikTok grew 20 percent year-over-year during the same period, according to the research.
With the looming threat of the TikTok ban, ByteDance started to ramp up its advertising efforts with Lemon8 by targeting influencers and paying stars to post about the alternative app, the Wrap reported last year.
Why was Lemon8 included in a TikTok ban?
In April 2024, Congress passed a bill, signed into law by Biden, giving ByteDance nine months to find a U.S.-approved buyer.
The law states the divest-or-ban requirement applies generally to apps that are owned or operated by ByteDance, TikTok or any of their subsidiaries.
Lawmakers and officials say the company has links to the Chinese Communist Party, prompting concern that it could be forced to hand over data about American users to Beijing. The Justice Department has said that TikTok poses “a national-security threat of immense depth and scale”.
The same concerns remain for Lemon8.
There have been signs TikTok could make a comeback under Trump, who has said he wants to pursue a “political resolution” of the issue and last month urged the Supreme Court to pause implementation of the ban.
Some experts have argued that the real danger the apps pose is “societal,” and not “security.”
“Even if the U.S. bans TikTok specifically, Bytedance — the parent company — is already migrating users to a competing very similar app that it also owns called Lemon8,” Josh Constine of the venture capital firm SignalFire told CNN. “And so it wouldn’t solve the problem unless we basically ban all of ByteDance’s apps.”
President-elect Donald Trump has asked the Supreme Court to delay its decision while he seeks a “political” solution. However, his second term will not begin until the day after the ban is scheduled to start.