TikTok Went Dark Ahead of US Ban, Now Awaiting Fate After President-elect Donald Trump's Pledge

By HALELU YA HADERO

A mysterious blackout on Saturday evening has left millions of users in the United States unable to access their favorite social media platform TikTok, just hours before a federal ban was set to take effect.

The sudden and unexplained shutdown of the application, which is owned by Chinese technology company ByteDance, saw users encountering an error message from the app that prevented them from scrolling through videos.

"We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office," said the notice from TikTok.

The move comes as President-elect Donald Trump expressed his willingness to extend the deadline by 90 days, a potential lifeline for ByteDance's troubled U.S. business.

"we are fortunate that president trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate tiktok once he takes office," said the notice from TikTok.

Lawmakers in Washington had long suspected the app posed a national security threat due to its Chinese ownership, arguing the data collected by the service could fall into the hands of Beijing through coercion.