On Thursday evening, Apple and Google recovered Tiktok to their respective US app stores on Thursday, weeks after removing the short video platform following the national security law that banned it at home.
The company also deleted other apps owned by the Buitedan (video editor Capcut and social media app Lemon8) by Tiktok’s parent company, and restored them on Thursday.
Former US President Joe Biden passed the law last year, calling for an ordinance to sell Tiktok to a company not owned by Chinese companies by January 19th. The law has spurred concerns that its relationship with Beijing poses a threat to national security. They would also have imposed serious financial penalties on the App Store operator if the App Store operator did not comply. The Supreme Court upheld the law on January 17th.
However, shortly after he took office, current US President Donald Trump on January 20 signed an executive order aimed at delaying the law, giving an extension to the 75-day Byte Dance to find a seller .
Tiktok quickly restored its services domestically, but Apple and Google have locked the app out of stores due to confusion over the penalties imposed due to the delay in the law.
For US users, those who uninstalled Tiktok were unable to reinstall it, but those who were unable to use it. Earlier this month, Tiktok urged Android smartphone users to sideload the app.
Since then, Trump has said he hopes the US will own 50% share in Tiktok through joint ventures with other tech companies. He also took office as a sovereignty fund that could take part in the deal-making of Tiktok.
Last month, CNBC reported that Tiktok’s traffic recovered almost 90% from pre-ban time, according to CloudFlare radar data. However, rival social networks are trying to turn this uncertain bank into a bank. Both X and Bluesky have launched their own vertical video feed, and Meta has announced a video editing app that rivals Capcut.
According to data from Analytics Firm Sensor Tower, Tiktok was the second-most downloaded app in the country with 52 million downloads last year.
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