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Trump Reinstates TikTok Just Hours It Went Dark for American Users

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TikTok has resumed its U.S. operations after receiving an unexpected boost from President-elect Donald Trump, who reportedly provided “assurances” that helped ease concerns over the app’s future in America. Following months of uncertainty surrounding potential bans and national security concerns, the app was shut down for American users late Saturday night, became unavailable, and was removed from Apple and Google’s app stores. However, sources say Trump’s involvement was pivotal in convincing lawmakers and regulators that the Chinese-owned app could continue its service under strict oversight.

During Trump’s massive pre-Inauguration Day rally on Sunday, the president-elect announced he would bring back access to the app for American users.

“As of today, TikTok is back,” Trump said during his historic rally on the eve of his inauguration.

Earlier in the day, Trump wrote on Truth Social that he would issue an executive order on Monday to extend the period before the law’s prohibitions occur. He said saving the app is necessary to protect the United State’s national security. The president-elect also said there would be no liability for any company that helped keep TikTok being banned before his order.

(Read more from “Trump Reinstates TikTok Just Hours It Went Dark for American Users” HERE)

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

TikTok Was Barely Banned Two Hours When Disaffected Teen Allegedly Committed Crime Targeting Key Congressman

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Police in east-central Wisconsin arrested a male teenager Sunday for allegedly setting fire to a strip mall leasing space for a congressman’s district office over the lawmaker’s position on banning TikTok.

The suspected 19-year-old arsonist from Menasha set fire to the building housing the office of Republican Wisconsin Rep. Glenn Grothman early Sunday morning, the Fond du Lac Police Department (FDLPD) alleged.

Grothman had voted in support of the TikTok ban if its Chinese owner, ByteDance, failed to sell the app, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.

FDLPD officers and the City of Fond du Lac Fire Rescue responded to the report of the fire at about 1:02 a.m. and were able to contain the fire until first responders arrived and put it out, the FDLPD said.

FDLPD officers spotted the suspect near the strip mall. The suspect “admitted to starting the fire in response to recent talks of a TikTok ban,” according to the FDLPD’s statement. (Read more from “TikTok Was Barely Banned Two Hours When Disaffected Teen Allegedly Committed Crime Targeting Key Congressman” HERE)

‘Daily Show’ Mocks TikTok Users Saying Ban Is the Worst Thing U.S. Has Ever Done

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Comedy Central’s The Daily Show host Jordan Klepper mocked TikTok users expressing their outrage over the U.S. banning the Chinese app this Saturday. One TikTok user called the decision the worst thing the United States has ever done.

“That’s the number one worst thing? I mean, we did slavery in America. Let’s at least call it a tie, shall we?” the Daily Show host said on Wednesday in response to the lamenting TikTok user.

Klepper went on to poke fun at the U.S. government, which has argued that TikTok is a national security threat and that Americans are being spied on by the Chinese, who are stealing their data. . .

He also made fun of the government for the fact that Americans have begun downloading other Chinese-owned apps, like RedNote and Lemon8, in response to the TikTok ban.

“Good job, U.S. government! You told America they couldn’t see China anymore and now they’re off to Vegas with it,” Klepper laughed. “This must be so frustrating for Kamala. She just spent the whole election fighting accusations that she’s a socialist. And now every American is like, ‘I would literally pledge to be a Chinese socialist for a good TikTok replacement.’” (Read more from “‘Daily Show’ Mocks TikTok Users Saying Ban Is the Worst Thing U.S. Has Ever Done” HERE)

Biden Makes Decision on Whether to Enforce TikTok Ban Just Days Before Trump Returns to White House

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President Biden will not enforce a law banning TikTok that is set to take effect the day before he leaves office, according to a US official.

The official indicated that Biden, 82, has decided to pass the buck to President-elect Donald Trump, according to the Associated Press, leaving the implementation of the law targeting the Chinese-owned social media app up to the incoming administration.

The law, which cleared both chambers of Congress and was approved by the president last year, compels TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, to divest itself from the social media app by Jan. 19 or face a US ban.

TikTok — used by more than 170 million Americans monthly — is reportedly planning to shut down the app on Sunday.

Trump, who has repeatedly expressed a desire to “save” TikTok, is reportedly considering executive action that would delay the implementation of the sell-or-ban law of the ban for up to 90 days.

“We will put measures in place to keep TikTok from going dark,” incoming White House national security adviser Mike Waltz told Fox News on Thursday, noting that the new law allows for an extension preventing it from taking effect “as long as a viable deal is on the table.” (Read more from “Biden Makes Decision on Whether to Enforce TikTok Ban Just Days Before Trump Returns to White House” HERE)

Trump Asks SCOTUS to Pause TikTok Ban ‘To Pursue a Negotiated Resolution’

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President-elect Donald Trump urged the Supreme Court on Friday to pause an impending ban on the Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok.

Trump’s legal team filed a friend-of-the-court brief requesting the justices pause TikTok’s ban, due to go into effect on January 19, to give the president-elect time to negotiate a deal to keep the platform operating in the United States. The effort to ban TikTok gained bipartisan support earlier this year as critics accused the platform of threatening U.S. national security by collecting data on Americans.

In April, Congress passed and President Joe Biden signed legislation that included a ban on TikTok unless the social media platform can meet the terms outlined in the legislation, namely being sold off from its parent company, ByteDance. The legislation gave the social media platform 270 days to comply with the chance of an additional 90 days if the Biden administration assesses that ByteDance has made meaningful progress toward a sale.

TikTok sued the government over the ban, claiming that it violates the First Amendment.

“President Trump takes no position on the merits of the dispute,” Trump’s team wrote in its brief. “Instead, he urges the Court to stay the statute’s effective date to allow his incoming Administration to pursue a negotiated resolution that could prevent a nationwide shutdown of TikTok, thus preserving the First Amendment rights of tens of millions of Americans, while also addressing the government’s national security concerns.” (Read more from “Trump Asks SCOTUS to Pause TikTok Ban ‘To Pursue a Negotiated Resolution’” HERE)

Court Rejects TikTok’s Bid to Control Americans and Be Controlled by the CCP

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TikTok suffered a major legal setback as a federal court rejected the company’s petition to overturn the law that requires TikTok either to find an American owner or face a ban in the United States as early as January 19, 2025. If the ban is enforced, it could significantly impact the popular made-in-China app’s millions of users in the United States, as well as the company’s global operations.

Since 2020, TikTok (which is owned by ByteDance, a Beijing-based internet technology company) has been embroiled in a legal battle in the U.S., coinciding with the app’s explosive popularity. The app, which became a source of entertainment for bored young people under Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns, is now under scrutiny. As its user base has grown, so have the app’s problems. TikTok’s data collection practices, which include acquiring IP addresses, browsing history, and biometric information, have raised serious privacy and data security concerns.

A Wall Street Journal analysis found that TikTok’s robust algorithm is a major reason why young people are addicted to smartphones. The app often pushes young users “deep into harmful rabbit holes of content” that “glorif[ies] eating disorders, drugs, violence” and makes it difficult for users to escape. Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts said TikTok and social media platforms “are specifically designed to create the digital dependencies that fuel mental illness and anxiety, to fray children’s bonds with their parents and siblings. Federal policy cannot allow this industrial-scale child abuse to continue.”

TikTok is also known to serve as Communist China’s propaganda tool by extending Beijing’s censorship to non-Chinese citizens overseas. The app reportedly instructs its content moderators to “censor videos that mention Tiananmen Square, Tibetan independence, or the banned religious group Falun Gong,” all sensitive subjects that the Chinese government has censored for decades. (Read more from “Court Rejects TikTok’s Bid to Control Americans and Be Controlled by the CCP” HERE)

Chinese Company Appears to Ignore Threat of U.S. Ban, Says It ‘Has No Plans’ to Sell TikTok: Report

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According to Toutaio, a news and information content platform that is a core product of the Chinese company ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, ByteDance has no plans to sell TikTok.

Last weekend, Congress passed a measure that gave ByteDance nine months to sell TikTok or it will be banned in the United States. If a sale is in progress during those nine months, an additional three months would be added. On Wednesday, President Biden signed the measure into law.

“Foreign media reports that ByteDance is exploring the sale of TikTok are untrue. ByteDance has no plans to sell TikTok,” Toutaio stated on Thursday.

TikTok had responded to Biden signing the bill with a statement on X:

This unconstitutional law is a TikTok ban, and we will challenge it in court. We believe the facts and the law are clearly on our side, and we will ultimately prevail. The fact is, we have invested billions of dollars to keep U.S. data safe and our platform free from outside influence and manipulation. This ban would devastate seven million businesses and silence 170 million Americans.

(Read more from “Chinese Company Appears to Ignore Threat of U.S. Ban, Says It ‘Has No Plans’ to Sell TikTok: Report” HERE)

Chinese Embassy Reportedly Lobbied Directly Against TikTok Bill On Capitol Hill

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The Chinese Embassy has held closed-door meetings with congressional staff to lobby against a bill that would force a sale or ban of TikTok, according to Politico.

Chinese Embassy officials reportedly reached out to set up the meetings shortly after the House voted decisively in favor of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, but did not specifically mention TikTok when they initially made contact, according to Politico, which granted several congressional staffers anonymity to speak freely. In one phone call placed to Capitol Hill staffers, an embassy official reportedly stated that the Chinese ambassador wanted to discuss the legislation.

The legislation, which would force TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to sell the platform or otherwise see the popular social media app banned in the U.S. ,is stalling in the Senate after passing the House by a decisive margin in March.

TikTok has repeatedly denied that it is linked with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), but a former senior ByteDance employee has alleged that CCP members inside the company have “superuser” credentials and a “backdoor channel” to access American users’ data, while the app often promotes content for users that is aligned with the CCP’s agenda, according to a recent study by Network Contagion Research Institute and Rutgers University.

“For once, Chinese diplomats have done America a favor,” Michael Sobolik, a senior fellow for the American Foreign Policy Council who specializes in Indo-Pacific studies, told Politico. “By lobbying congressional staff to protect TikTok’s relationship with ByteDance, [People’s Republic of China] officials are revealing how valuable TikTok is to the Chinese Communist Party. Losing control of the app would neuter Beijing’s most potent weapon against Americans.” (Read more from “Chinese Embassy Reportedly Lobbied Directly Against TikTok Bill On Capitol Hill” HERE)

Officers Arrest Fugitive Influencer Who Encouraged Migrants to Squat in Homes: Report

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Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers have reportedly arrested a TikTok influencer who encouraged illegal migrants to squat in Americans’ homes.

Leonel Moreno, who went viral after telling illegal migrants to take over properties in the U.S., was reportedly taken into federal custody on Friday after ICE’s Fugitive Ops team arrested him in Columbus, Ohio, Fox News’ Bill Melugin reported, citing an unnamed ICE official.

Moreno illegally crossed the southern border at Eagle Pass, Texas, in April 2022 before being registered with the Alternatives for Detention program, the New York Post reported. The illegal migrant was then categorized as an “absconder” after failing to abide by the program’s rules, which included being tracked by federal authorities using ankle monitors and other methods, according to internal ICE documents cited by the Post.

(Read more from “Officers Arrest Fugitive Influencer Who Encouraged Migrants to Squat in Homes: Report” HERE)

Political Candidate Arrested for Allegedly Punching Tiktoker in Face, Police Say

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A political candidate who ran for office multiple times in New York was arrested Wednesday for allegedly punching a TikToker in the face, police said.

Skiboky Stora has ran for mayor, governor and city council as a down-ballot candidate over a three=year span, according to the New York Post. He was reportedly charged with assault after allegedly punching Halley Kate, a random woman, in the face Monday, the New York City Police Department (NYPD) said.

Kate posted a viral video following the alleged attack as she walked down the streets of Chelsea, the outlet reported. In the video, the victim was seen with a red face. “You guys, I was literally just walking, and a man came up and punched me in the face. Oh my g**, it hurts so bad. I can’t even talk,” she alleged. . .

(Read more from “Political Candidate Arrested for Allegedly Punching Tiktoker in Face, Police Say” HERE)