TikTok briefly went dark in the US over the weekend, after the Supreme Court denied a bid by Chinese owner ByteDance to overturn a law banning it. But it was back after a day with a message thanking incoming president Donald Trump for his "efforts" in restoring the app.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyng762q4eo
The Supreme Court has upheld the law that will effectively ban TikTok on Sunday, January 19. The decision marks the end of TikTok’s months-long legal fight against a law that essentially forces the ByteDance-owned app to shut down unless it divests its U.S. operations on national security grounds. As of Sunday, it will be illegal for app stores and internet hosting services to distribute the social network. TikTok has warned that the app will simply “go dark” on Sunday, but it’s unclear what exactly will happen once the ban takes effect.
https://techcrunch.com/2025/01/17/supreme-court-upholds-tiktok-ban/
TikTok users in the US are migrating to a Chinese app called RedNote with the threat of a ban just days away. The move by users who call themselves "TikTok refugees" has made RedNote the most downloaded app on Apple's US App Store on Monday. RedNote is a TikTok competitor popular with young people in China, Taiwan and other Mandarin-speaking populations.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2475l7zpqyo
School districts across 19 states claim that the companies do not adequately implement features like age verification, parental controls, and session timeouts. Design choices that allow for endless scrolling, coupled with targeted algorithms, mean kids have trouble putting down their phones, creating a doom loop that can interrupt sleep at best and create serious mental health issues at worst. The schools say they've had to dedicate resources to handle this, from confiscating phones to dealing with online behavior that spills into classrooms, including dangerous social media "challenges."
https://www.pcmag.com/news/school-districts-notch-a-win-in-tech-addiction-case-against-top-platforms
As TikTok heads to court on Monday to argue against a U.S. ban, parent company ByteDance’s newer social app, Lemon8, is once again surging to the top of the App Store in the U.S. The push is due, in part, to increased advertising. Described by TikTok influencers as a cross between Pinterest and Instagram — or more recently, as “Pinterest on steroids” — the app had previously appeared in the App Store’s top charts when a TikTok ban was being discussed by U.S. lawmakers.
https://techcrunch.com/2024/09/16/as-tiktok-ban-heads-to-court-bytedances-lemon8-surges/
The House on Wednesday approved a bill that requires ByteDance to divest TikTok within roughly six months in order for the app “to remain available in the United States.” However, China would likely block a sale of TikTok U.S., analysts told CNBC.
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/14/tiktok-ban-china-would-block-sale-of-short-video-app.html
TikTok appears to be planning to expand into photo sharing via the launch of a new "TikTok Photos" app, according to TheSpAndroid blog. A large number of references to the app were discovered in the latest version of TikTok, revealing some of its functionality, integrations, and even its app icon. The official launch date and regional availability of "TikTok Photos" is unknown, but the presence of extensive references to it within TikTok's code suggests that an announcement could be imminent.
https://www.macrumors.com/2024/03/12/new-tiktok-photos-app-spotted/