Tiktok has been shut down in the USA

In a unanimous decision, the U.S. Supreme Court announced on Friday that a ban on TikTok does not violate the First Amendment of the Constitution regarding freedom of speech. Thus, TikTok's appeal against the decision was rejected.

This means that starting today, Sunday, TikTok is unavailable for American users, as the new law prohibiting the app came into effect. TikTok informed its American users late on Saturday that the app would be "temporarily unavailable" on Sunday.

Upon logging in, users were met with a message where the company explained that the new law forces them to temporarily suspend their services. Initially, users could still dismiss the message and use the app as usual, but it then became completely unavailable.

The law also prohibits service providers such as Apple, Google, Amazon, and Oracle from distributing the app and its services. The fine for service providers is specified as 5,000 dollars per TikTok user, and TikTok had an estimated 170 million American users at the time of the shutdown.

Tiktok announced that they are working to restore the service as soon as possible, but warned that the service may be permanently shut down if President Joe Biden does not clarify the platform's future. However, the outgoing President Joe Biden's administration has announced that the implementation of the law is left to Donald Trump, who takes over as president on Monday.