About availability of TikTok and ByteDance Ltd. apps in the United States

https://support.apple.com/en-us/121596

by DrBenCarson • 2 years ago

119 142 2 years ago

support.apple.com

kelseyfrog• 2 years ago

Does this also remove the app from devices?

herpderperator2• 2 years ago

If you read the article, no.

renewiltord• 2 years ago

Unfortunately, I did not read the article and so they did remove the apps.

koolba• 2 years ago

From the article:

If you already have these apps installed on your device, they will remain on your device. But they can’t be redownloaded if deleted or restored if you move to a new device. In-app purchases and new subscriptions are no longer possible.

But regardless, good riddance.

sunshinerag• 2 years ago

No. As stated in the article. But you can’t start or renew subscriptions

DrBenCarson14• 2 years ago

No, Apple has no way to remove installed apps from a phone, but does it disable any payments and app updates

arcticbull• 2 years ago

Sure they do, to allow them to remove malware. They don't use it often however.

1over137• 2 years ago

"has no way to remove installed apps"? Sure they do. But it's not a line they've crossed up to now.

lukax• 2 years ago

So people could just use a non-US VPN and a non-US Apple account to download the apps?

herpderperator2• 2 years ago

People can always "just."

DrBenCarson14• 2 years ago

If I understand correctly, GPS and phone number would also need to be outside the US

FriedPickles• 2 years ago

Yes. Or visit TikTok.com in the browser, even if their region is set to US.

int_• 2 years ago

If I could remember correctly Apple forces you to reset your iCloud account when you change regions.

marban2• 2 years ago

No, not for the App Store account — which can be a different one. Once you've downloaded an app with a different account, the credentials will be stored and you can switch back to the native one; you'll also get regular updates. I do this all the time for US-only apps on an EU phone (e.g. Google Voice).

bluerobotcat• 2 years ago

You can keep your purchases these days.

Though I when last changed countries I did find that I lost some purchases. I would guess it can happen when an item is not available in the new country.

There’s a rate limit on how often you change countries and you’ll need a payment method from the country you want to change to (e.g. a credit card issued in that country, the address on the card doesn’t matter).

You’ll also need to cancel e.g. your Apple TV+ subscription before you can switch.

rkagerer• 2 years ago

I'm pretty sure I changed regions once on my old iPhone over a decade ago and it was fairly seamless.

Maybe someone who's done it more recently can comment?

It would be brutal if what you say is true. Simply moving is not something a user would expect to reset their whole account.

And if purchases were lost I would think it would be pretty strong grounds to bring a lawsuit against the company (especially if the apps were bought prior to any attempts by Apple to write in clauses permitting what'd amount to theft).

schott12521• 2 years ago

From what I've read, user accounts are tagged as being US created and are therefore blocked from accessing the app.

sammy2255• 2 years ago

Sounds like Tiktok has actually banned US users then, as well as US banning Tiktok (being removed from the App store)

croddin2• 2 years ago

Even if you already have TikTok on you phone, you can’t use it now and get the following message:

Sorry, TikTok isn't available right now
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!

boredatoms• 2 years ago

Does that hold for VPNs, or does it use app store download location?

croddin2• 2 years ago

VPN doesn’t work for TikTok so must be based on the App Store. VPN does seem to work to use CapCut so far though.

jkaplowitz• 2 years ago

That’s dishonest of ByteDance. The legislated ban doesn’t mean the existing US users can’t use it right now. This message simply means that ByteDance made a business decision to shut it down for the existing US user base.

I understand several reasons they might be making that business decision, including supportability reasons. I also get why they might be choosing to explain the situation dishonestly. But understanding their potential motivations doesn’t make a dishonest explanation any less dishonest.

whitehexagon• 2 years ago

If only our climate emergency had such a hero to swoop in and save the planet. Pretty sure I saw a headline on HN last week that we already blew through the 1.5C limit, I doubt it got a fraction of the 2000+ hits this story got yesterday.

daemoens3• 2 years ago

The app was shutdown a couple of hours ago in the US and this was the message all TikTok users saw when they opened the app.[1]

The same guy who pushed for a ban massively last year, is going to save the app despite the security concerns he and most of our government said they had. If only we knew what happened in that classified briefing that made them vote together across party lines.

[1] https://a57.foxnews.com/static.foxbusiness.com/foxbusiness.c...

afavour• 2 years ago

They’re massaging his ego and quite honestly it might be their best strategy. A whole lot of people out there want their TikTok back and you can bet Trump would love to call the press conference announcing that he, and only he, did the greatest deal and got the app back. Classified briefing be damned.

_2d302• 2 years ago

If you want another angle beyond "massaging egos", look into the Trump <> Jeff Yass connection: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Yass

csomar2• 2 years ago

This is what happens when the process of law gets thrown out of the window and instead power is negotiated by people at the top. As someone who lived in a dictatorship -> democracy -> dictatorship, seeing tech CEOs pilgrimage to the Trump house, the US is critically close to turning into a dictatorship.

Andys• 2 years ago

This is exactly what we saw when Sept 11 happened (over 20 years ago) and the Republicans decided to invade Iraq and carry out all sorts of extra-judicial mischief.

I started to think the world was going to end but its ticking along in the same manner which has now coloured my views.

jakelazaroff• 2 years ago

That last sentence is sarcastic, right? They didn’t like that TikTok was showing pro-Palestinian content.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/lawmaker...

silisili2• 2 years ago

I'm not going to pick a side, as I'm not versed enough in the history and nuances.

But I will say, partly emboldened by Massie's admissions, the absolute control Israel has over the US government is concerning.

mrtksn5• 2 years ago

“Freedom loving Trump saving freedom of speech from the dictators that ban apps” would be such a boon for Trump. It’s amazing that the current administration set up such a scene.

DrBenCarson14• 2 years ago

This law was passed by Congress and upheld 9-0 by the Supreme Court

mr_00ff003• 2 years ago

Will admit, this is a big PR win for him if it works.

Especially since a lot of young voters / voters in general don’t see much of the impact of the president.

Him doing something popular that the average person can see seems like a huge win.

FranzFerdiNaN• 2 years ago

It’s amazing how you fully buy into Trump propaganda.

guelo• 2 years ago

There was nothing in the classified briefing. The ban was enacted because their zionist donors told them to. Our government is corrupted past the point of recovery.

tivert• 2 years ago

If only we knew what happened in that classified briefing that made them vote together across party lines.

I don't know about any classified briefing, but TikTok publicly shot itself in the foot badly during the vote, though a hamfisted attempt to influence it. I think that was enough in itself to bring about bipartisan unity.

talldatethrow• 2 years ago

Great, maybe this will add more energy to making things browser based instead of app.

hidelooktropic• 2 years ago

It won’t.

sub74• 2 years ago

This is number 1 bullshit

DrBenCarson14• 2 years ago

Here’s why I’m okay with it: China doesn’t allow American social media either

sub74• 2 years ago

China didn't invent the transistor or the internet either, because they do stupid shit like clamping down arbitrarily instead of just telling the losers to try harder.

Artificially suppressing competition is the most anti-capitalist and anti-American thing I've ever seen, no matter how shitty this particular app may be.

hawthornio• 2 years ago

Hey I'm curious about this point of view—would you mind elaborating on what specifically justifies it in your mind? Is it because it's akin to a trade war and we're responding to their 'import restriction' with our own? Something else...? Thanks!

xbmcuser• 2 years ago

So America is the same as China and Americans should not fight for the freedoms they enjoy. By the way American social media platform are not banned in China rather Chinese people access to information outside China is restricted if an american company following all the laws of China would open an app it would not be stopped any more than a Chinese app both would have to follow the same laws. In the US it's a different law for US apps vs Chinese apps which I think just tells you the US government is owned by corporations.

roncesvalles2• 2 years ago

China is not a role model for America.

China doesn't allow open social media for its citizens for the sole reason that it's bad for the stability of the CCP's dictatorship regime, not because it's bad for the people or the country.

Scoundreller• 2 years ago

Going to be fun to see what an everyone-but-US social media platform looks like.

Twitter was fun for the few hours when it got hacked and they shutdown all of the "verified" accounts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Twitter_account_hijacking

Wonder how Meta's stock will do on Monday

stonesthrowaway• 2 years ago

Wonder how Meta's stock will do on Monday

My guess is the price won't budge on Monday.

viewtransform• 2 years ago

I predict with high confidence there will be no change to Meta's stock on Monday.

DrBenCarson14• 2 years ago

This has probably been priced in for a while

kurthr2• 2 years ago

Well, Tiktok is already banned in Pakistan, India, and China so that's over 3Billion people.

selimthegrim• 2 years ago

It’s got 62 million users in Pakistan how is it banned.

OJFord• 2 years ago

The smug replies you're getting are because Monday 20 Jan happens to be a bank holiday (Martin Luther King's birthday) in the US (so markets closed).

wodenokoto• 2 years ago

Maybe we can update the title to reflect that its in America and not world wide?

DrBenCarson14• 2 years ago

Fair, done. Thank you for the suggestion

Lammy7• 2 years ago

No opinion on TikTok itself as I've never used it, but I hope this wakes more people up to the fact that they're at the whim of the app gatekeepers and makes them demand the ability to run what they want on hardware they supposedly own.

lostlogin• 2 years ago

How do you propose that it works when Apple has control Molly with US law?

Lammy7• 2 years ago

ACAB

nemothekid• 2 years ago

Note: the “app gatekeepers” in this context is the United States Government.

Lammy7• 2 years ago

Yes, and Apple's App Store is the mechanism of that control.

DrBenCarson14• 2 years ago

Uh the law specifically makes it illegal to distribute ByteDance apps

Apple and Google are at the whim of Congress here

Lammy7• 2 years ago

Don't care; doesn't supersede my right to general-purpose computing

dvngnt_2• 2 years ago

can't relate since im on android

DrBenCarson14• 2 years ago

Same thing’s happening on the Play Store

cruffle_duffle• 2 years ago

Covid already proved that the government can yank your shit at their whim with absolutely no recourse on your part. It’s just nobody was paying any attention because they all lost their mind. Hopefully people wake up and see how little the government gives a shit about you or I.

djtango• 2 years ago

Is this only in the US?

I assume douyin is available in China?

daemoens3• 2 years ago

Douyin is comepletely separated from TikTok. The apps cannot legally be the same. They do not want their citizens and foreigners talking on the same platform.

vFunct• 2 years ago

So is TikTok not going to bother with a WebApp that connects to non-US servers?

Is the web capable of all native app functions yet? What’s missing?

hippari2• 2 years ago

SNS apps don't bother with a web version now I'm afraid, Twitter / Bluesky seems like the exception.

roncesvalles2• 2 years ago

tiktok.com was their full-featured webapp. I guess trying to skirt the law weakens their case even more so they decided to fully comply in both letter and spirit. Even VPNs don't work.

rf15• 2 years ago

Ah, the great and classic play of "politician wants to insert his name into everything to get recognition when things get better". This is Modi's rice all over again.

blackeyeblitzar• 2 years ago

If Trump doesn’t enforce the ban, he will lose all credibility with his own base.

Toutouxc• 2 years ago

I’m afraid that this mechanism of Trump losing credibility hasn’t been implemented.

Jcowell2• 2 years ago

Short of actually , multiple, live stream evidence of Trump sexually abusing a child. He will never lose credibility.

AceJohnny2• 2 years ago

Huh, I didn't realize Marvel Snap fell under that umbrella ban. I play that game during lunch breaks, it's a good card game with 2-3 minute matches, developed by Hearthstone luminaries (though it's never been clear to me what gameplay benefit you got from season passes, ie what their business model is. I was unaware of security concerns like TikTok that Tracks Everything it can)

Upon launching the game on iOS, the following message appears:

Unfortunately, MARVEL SNAP is temporarily unavailable on US stores and is unavailable to play in the US.
This outage is a surprise to us and wasn't planned.
MARVEL SNAP isn't going anywhere. We're actively working on getting the game up as soon as possible and will update you once we have more to share.

I guess we'll see how temporary it is.

daemoens3• 2 years ago

Are there any other services or companies besides ByteDance affected by the bill?

diebeforei4852• 2 years ago

The bill specifically says "ByteDance/TikTok bad", and says for other companies the President needs to make a written determination. So in theory it can affect any other company based in China, provided the President makes that determination.

enraged_camel• 2 years ago

How is marvel snap affiliated with bytedance?

1xdevnet• 2 years ago

The game is published by Nuverse, which is a ByteDance subsidiary.

freddie_mercury3• 2 years ago

It is published by a company that ByteDance owns.

Presumably they are switching to a new publisher and will be back soon.

ljlolel2• 2 years ago

In other news, people are flooding Hangout.fm music discovery social app

tokioyoyo3• 2 years ago

Is this the first time we're getting a social media with no US-users? This is actually kinda interesting, as US-based content dominates a good chunk of international videos.

freddie_mercury3• 2 years ago

No, there are lots of them, including obviously all the ones in China like Douyin and Weibo but also Bigo Live, Zalo, and others.

tokioyoyo3• 2 years ago

The first two doesn’t have real traction outside of China. I meant like TikTok right now is basically everyone but US and India.

nradov2• 2 years ago

It's not the first time. For one example, VKontakte is a social network mainly used in Russia and has very few US users.

tokioyoyo3• 2 years ago

It doesn't have users outside of Russian. My point was it's everyone except US and China. Well, I guess it's not the case anymore, but it had a good run.

russli1993• 2 years ago

Tens of thousands of companies using Tiktok shop or other Bytedance services is suddenly in-operable as well. Jobs loses, layoffs coming.

The power of digital dictatorship, USA government can kill a company, the entire ecosystem, all of the companies, users, entities relying on the digital application and service with stroke of pen. Every country and person on the planet should have vested interest to reduce choke points that can be exploited by USA government. So USA government shenanigans can't just ruin the invention you created, your jobs, your peaceful Sunday.

mr_00ff003• 2 years ago

As a counter argument (and not saying this is right)

This creates a vacuum of time that Americans now can use on other tech apps. American leisure hours is a finite resource, in a way TikTok competes with Netflix, Meta, and even sports.

That’s revenue in other areas.

dkjaudyeqooe• 2 years ago

Closing TikTok in the US isn't going to kill Bytedance.

Every company is subject to the laws of every country where it operates. I don't know why you're singling the US out.

Ultimatley Bytedance is responsible for their own behavior and the consequences.

dang• 2 years ago

Related ongoing thread:

TikTok goes dark in the US - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42753396 - Jan 2025 (312 comments)

beeflet• 2 years ago

There's a lot of debate in the media about whether or not the banning of bytedance/tiktok is an infringement of the 1st ammendment rights of users or if it represents a threat to the security of the country.

I just think that governments shouldn't be able to easily take down internet services like this. If it was just a normal web service with reasonably competent userbase, it could continue operating a hidden service over tor or some other mixnet. Instead, the government can effectively shut down the service by sending takedown orders to app stores and ISPs, which are naturally monopolistic and have little reason to stand up to regulators and act on behalf of their user's interests.

People have locked themselves into walled gardens and this is the end product. The town square has been privatized and controlled. Own your computers, people! Or someone else will.

notacoward• 2 years ago

The US constitution prohibits bills of attainder, i.e. targeted toward specific individuals. The US has also decided that corporations are people, so the concept should apply to them as well. Therefore, by their own reasoning this is unconstitutional.

I have very mixed feelings about this. On the one hand I hate hypocrisy (which this is) and rarely hesitate to call it out. On the other hand I believe "corporate personhood" is absolute bollocks. I resolve this in my own mind by saying that the ban on bills of attainder can be extended to corporations and other entities without declaring them persons. Laws should be statements of principle, timeless and equally applicable to all, not one-off actions targeted toward specific entities.

tasuki• 2 years ago

But they can’t be redownloaded if deleted or restored if you move to a new device.

Amazing news! It's a plot to stop people buying new phones, hence saving the planet a little bit...

eddyg• 2 years ago

TikTok users should’ve been posting/begging non-stop for ByteDance to sell their U.S. operations once the law passed.

That’s all the law was asking for.

ByteDance chose not to, and now everybody thinks the U.S. is banning apps “just because”.

Where is the “all ByteDance had to do was sell, and we’d still have our TikTokShops” outrage, which is where any outrage should be focused.

nradov2• 2 years ago

Why would ByteDance care what TikTok users think?

penjelly• 2 years ago

me, Canadian, open tiktok for the first time in months and the 2nd reel is Canada vs US war & how China will help Canada. No way you can convince me this isn't a propaganda machine.

chvid• 2 years ago

Apple should do a new note explaining why they put the apps back on the App Store without a changed law or a formal delay of the ban.

eksu• 2 years ago

They have not done this currently. The apps are still unavailable. (6AM EST 1/20/25)

ImJamal• 2 years ago

But they can’t be redownloaded if deleted or restored if you move to a new device.

I understand not being able to redownload the app, but you can't restore the app if you move to a new device? I had no clue Apple checked which apps you were restoring. On Android you could get the apk and reinstall just fine without Google stopping you.

About availability of TikTok and ByteDance Ltd. apps in the United States

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