Finance
TikTok goes dark for US users as law banning platform takes effect
TikTok went dark on Sunday for US users as a new law banning the app took effect at midnight.
Users logging into TikTok were served with a message reading: “Sorry, TikTok isn’t available right now.”
“A law banning TikTok has been enatched in the U.S.,” the message added. “Unfortunately, that means you can’t use TikTok for now.”
The alert also mentioned President-elect Donald Trump by name saying, “We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office.” On its website, TikTok told users they could still login to download their data.
Access to the platform began getting cut off for some users about 90 minutes before the new law took effect. The app was also unavailable via Apple’s App Store. Videos intermittently loaded on TikTok, but the app also showed a blacked-out screen indicating network issues.
Saturday night’s cutoff for US TikTok users followed a report from The Information which said Oracle (ORCL), which manages TikTok’s US servers, was set to begin shutting down servers that host TikTok’s data as early as 9:00 p.m. ET.
In an interview with NBC on Saturday, Trump said he would likely grant TikTok a 90-day extension to work out a deal with the government and keep the app up and running.
The law itself doesn’t outright ban TikTok, but rather it prohibits users from accessing the platform through app stores, like those run by Apple (AAPL) and Google (GOOG, GOOGL), and cloud services unless parent company ByteDance sells itself to an owner that is not controlled by a country the US considers adversarial.
Congress has accused ByteDance of having close ties to the Chinese government and alleges that the Chinese Communist Party could force the company to provide it with information on US users or otherwise spread propaganda on the platform.
But the outcry from users and TikTok’s backers has forced President Joe Biden and Trump to respond. Even if Trump assures Apple and Google that his administration won’t enforce the law, it’s not guaranteed that it will do so in the future. And each time the companies don’t comply with the law they’d have to pay a fine of $5,000 each time a user accesses the social media app.
Trump will have to either convince Congress to overturn the ban or find some other way to work around it if he wants to keep the service up and running, and neither of those is simple.
The biggest winner could be one of TikTok’s long-term critics, Meta (META) CEO Mark Zuckerberg. In particular, Instagram, owned by Meta, could see a sizable uptick in advertiser dollars if TikTok bites the dust.
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Revenue: €147.4m (down 39% from FY 2023).
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Net income: €22.6m (down 73% from FY 2023).
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Profit margin: 15% (down from 35% in FY 2023). The decrease in margin was driven by lower revenue.
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EPS: €1.62 (down from €5.98 in FY 2023).
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Friday was another in the series of dramatic losses in the equity markets as investors pushed financial conditions into negative terrain because of mounting concerns around the costs linked to an expanding trade war.
Given the ever-widening scope of U.S. tariffs, with the next round set to take effect on April 2, the risks to the economic outlook through the financial channel are elevated and rising.
We anticipate that the economies targeted by the tariffs will retaliate in-kind. investors, firm managers and policymakers should also anticipate that retaliation will most likely include the tradeable services sector and not just agriculture, goods and politically sensitive industries like transportation.
Read more of RSM’s insights on the economy and the middle market.
The S&P 500 equity index peaked on Feb. 19 and has since lost 9% of its value with losses in seven of the past nine weekly sessions. On Friday alone, roughly $1.25 trillion in equity valuations were wiped away.
Interestingly, the Russell 2000 index of small cap corporations—a proxy for the health of privately held small and medium-sized businesses—has lost the most ground among the major stock indices.
The RTY index has now lost 17% of its value since peaking on Nov. 25, suggesting a loss of confidence in economic growth that will result in a slower pace of hiring and outlays on capital expenditures that will show up in hard data in the near term.
It is not just the equity market showing excessive levels of risk. Volatility in the Treasury market remains above its long-term average and corporate yield spreads are widening, offering more evidence of the concern over the direction of the economy.
While not yet significantly different than neutral, our RSM US Financial Conditions Index fell below zero on the last Friday of March.
Our index is designed such that negative values indicate increased levels of risk being priced into financial assets. Higher risk implies a higher cost of credit, which will affect the willingness to borrow or to lend that will hamper economic growth.
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