Donald Trump said yesterday that he would “most likely” delay the TikTok ban for 90 days after he takes office on Monday. But he has not yet made a final decision.
About 12 hours after TikTok went down in the US, the app is back for many users, CNN reports .
The platform explained its return by President-elect Donald Trump's desire to save the app.
On January 19, the social media platform TikTok went down in the US less than two hours before the ban was set to go into effect. Users who tried to open the app at the time were greeted with a message saying it was offline and asking them to “stay connected.”
Donald Trump previously did not rule out maintaining Chinese ownership of TikTok if measures were taken to ensure that American users' data was protected and stored in the United States, Trump's national security adviser Mike Waltz said.
Waltz said the president-elect is working to “save TikTok” and wouldn’t rule out continued Chinese ownership coupled with “firewalls to make sure the data is protected here on American soil.”
Trump said he would “likely” grant TikTok a 90-day reprieve from the ban after he takes office on Monday, a promise TikTok cited in a message posted to users on the app.
Recall that on January 17, the US Supreme Court upheld the current law requiring TikTok to be blocked unless China's ByteDance sold the platform to an American company. That same day, Trump said he would soon make a decision on TikTok.
At the same time, media reported that representatives of the Chinese government are studying the possibility of transferring TikTok to the United States under the control of Elon Musk.