After a suspension lasting over 25 days, TikTok is back in action in the United States. As of Thursday evening, both Apple and Google decided to reinstate the popular app on their respective platforms, the App Store and Google Play Store. This move comes after the app was removed back on January 18, following a national security law that prompted the temporary ban.
Not just TikTok, but other apps owned by ByteDance, like the video editor CapCut and the social networking app Lemon8, have also returned to these app stores. Intriguingly, Apple had shared a detailed support document at the time of the removals, but that document has since been taken down.
The day after the removal, TikTok began reaching out to its existing users, restoring services to them. However, for more than three weeks, Apple and Google did not make TikTok available in their stores for new downloads or for users who had deleted it. TikTok even asked Android users to download the app through their website as a workaround during this period.
The backdrop to this app’s saga includes an executive order from former President Donald Trump, issued immediately upon taking office, laying out a 75-day deadline for ByteDance to find a U.S.-based buyer for TikTok to avoid a total ban. Trump expressed a desire for the U.S. to own a 50% stake in TikTok, ideally through a partnership involving other companies, and even inaugurated a U.S. sovereign fund that could potentially engage in the app’s acquisition process.
Despite the chaos, TikTok’s user engagement has shown promising resilience. Last month, reports indicated that the app’s traffic had bounced back to about 90% of what it was before the ban, according to data from Cloudflare Radar. However, rival platforms have quickly seized this moment of uncertainty to advance their own interests. Social networks like X and Bluesky have launched vertical video features, while Meta announced a new video editing app to compete with CapCut.
In terms of popularity, TikTok has continued to be a formidable presence. According to an analytics firm, Sensor Tower, it was the second most downloaded app in the U.S. last year, boasting an impressive 52 million downloads. This rollercoaster of events shows just how integral TikTok has become in the digital landscape, and its journey is far from over.
