Epoch Times
TikTok said it would be “forced to go dark” on Sunday if the Biden administration does not issue a “definitive” assurance to its service providers that the U.S. government will not enforce a law requiring the company to divest or stop operation in the United States.
“The statements issued today by both the Biden White House and the Department of Justice have failed to provide the necessary clarity and assurance to the service providers that are integral to maintaining TikTok’s availability to over 170 million Americans,” the company said in a statement on Friday.
The Supreme Court ruled earlier in the day to uphold a ban on the social media platform unless TikTok’s owner ByteDance divests the social media app’s U.S. assets by Sunday.
The White House said on Friday that enforcing the ban will be the responsibility of the incoming Trump administration.
Responding to the high court’s decision, Trump said the decision on whether to keep or ban TikTok is up to him, but did not elaborate.
Trump wrote in a Truth Social post shortly before the court’s decision was issued that TikTok was among the topics in his conversation on Friday with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
President Joe Biden, who leaves office days from now, signed the forced divestiture law, called the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, in April last year after it was approved by bipartisan majorities in the House and Senate.
TikTok is operated in the United States by TikTok Inc., a U.S. company that Cayman Islands-based ByteDance Ltd. owns indirectly.
TikTok acknowledges that ByteDance owns subsidiaries in China and other nations but denies claims of Chinese influence in its operations. (More)
- Explainer: Breaking Down the TikTok Ban
- Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch warned on Friday that foreign adversaries could merely replace Chinese-owned TikTok with a similar app to surveil Americans.