TikTok is shutting down in the US on January 19

Nigerian social media giant TikTok has announced plans to completely shut down its operations in the United States (US) on Sunday, January 19, if prohibition established by the legislature is going according to plan.

New telegraph It emerged that the apparent shutdown comes as TikTok faces a January 19 deadline to cut ties with its Chinese parent ByteDance or cease operations in the US.

According to the report, the social media platform, which has more than 170 million US users, will implement an immediate shutdown rather than allowing existing users to continue access as expected.

READ ALSO

The report said that while the law only requires app stores to remove TikTok and cloud providers to stop hosting US user data, the company will opt to suspend the service entirely.

Users who try to open the app after the deadline will be faced with a message redirecting them to a federal ban statement and options to download their personal data, the report said.

However, ByteDance has so far refused to sell TikTok’s US operations, although analysts say that position could change as the reality of a forced exit looms.

Related