The sequence of events as far as I can recall:
- Trump promised to ban TikTok
- TikTok was slated to be “banned” in the twilight of Biden’s term
- Trump says he’d give it 90 days to make a decision
- Biden decides not to ban it, handing it off to Trump
- TikTok goes dark
- It returns, but if you search for something anti-Trump in the United States, you can’t find it
- Using a VPN will give you that content
- Various news outlets are now calling it Trump’s “Propaganda Arm”
What the fuck is going on? From a political or technological standpoint.
It went dark after the judicial review process found that the law was constitutional.
The important thing to recognize is that the site stopped operating in the us (which it said it would do in reaction to this decision) after it was clear that it would definitely be violating a law with explicit consequences if it continued.
One unremarked-upon aspect of the events between Saturday and Sunday was the arson of a representative’s office in retribution for the ban.
Combined with the crappy algorithm after the shutdown (indicates they gotta actually rebuild all the recommendations), it’s likely that the company shut the site down to be in compliance, intending to go back up if possible once the law was reversed or the new administration was in power, and was offered assurances against legal action and protection against the law after the representatives office was set on fire.
I’m not sure you’re correct.
The law only mandated that ByteDance remove TikTok from app stores in the U.S. if it failed to meet the sale deadline. Company executives made the decision to shutdown the app entirely.
Apple and Google removed it from their app stores in accordance with the law, and it is still removed from those app stores.
Quite possible that TikTok just went dark to make an infrastructure change to implement new code - while they display a message praising Trump.
This is key. Trump’s executive order can’t override the law. Executive orders can only interpret the law. With the courts saying the law is valid, TikTok and US hosting companies are understandably hesitant to resume operations just on Trump’s word (which is worthless anyway) that the ban won’t be enforced.