At a victory rally the day before being sworn into the presidency, Donald Trump extolled his plan to “save TikTok” from the law that banned it through a joint venture with the US.

On its face, the plan does not appear to comply with the law’s requirements for a qualified divestiture that TikTok’s service providers like Apple, Google, and Oracle could rely on to avoid hundreds of billions in potential fines. Even so, at least some of TikTok’s service providers seem to be relying on Trump’s flimsy promises, allowing TikTok to restore service to the app mid-day Sunday, on the first day of its ban.

TikTok has returned — at least partially — in the US following a nationwide ban, but other popular ByteDance-owned apps, such as the digital card game Marvel Snap, video editing app CapCut, and the social platform Lemon8, are still blocked. None of these apps, including TikTok, are currently available to download on the Apple App Store or Google Play Store, either.

Though many users expected CapCut and Lemon8 to be affected by the law banning TikTok, Marvel Snap’s ban took some by surprise — including its own developer. On Sunday morning, the game studio Second Dinner said in a post on X, “This outage is a surprise to us and wasn’t planned. MARVEL SNAP isn’t going anywhere.” Marvel Snap is published by Nuverse, a game developer owned by ByteDance.

No matter what TikTok says in its laudatory pop-up messages, President-elect Donald Trump cannot simply declare an extension of the TikTok ban deadline and protect American companies that support it from billions of dollars in fines.

Trump seems to want TikTok available for his inauguration on Monday, because “Americans deserve” to see the event. But TikTok is officially banned starting today until it sells to a non-Chinese company, and there’s no deal in sight. Flouting that ban could get Apple and Google’s app stores, as well as service providers Akamai and Oracle, dinged for potentially $850 billion in penalties. Despite all this, Trump has reportedly assured companies they won’t face these fines if they let TikTok keep operating. Now, the question is simple: will Trump-friendly companies risk breaking the law to make the president happy?

Instagram head Adam Mosseri just announced a video editing app called Edits. Mosseri said the app is meant to rival CapCut, a video editing app that went offline along with TikTok. Edits is available for preorder on the iOS App Store.

“There’s a lot going on right now, but no matter what happens, it’s our job to provide the best possible tools for creators,” Mosseri said in a video posted to Instagram. He goes on to describe the app:

TikTok announced on Sunday that it’s “in the process of restoring service,” but the app is still unavailable in the App Store and Google Play. If you search for TikTok on the App Store, you’ll see a message saying, “TikTok and other ByteDance apps are not available in the country or region you’re in,” while Google Play says, “Downloads for this app are paused due to current US legal requirements.”

Apple’s message also links to a support page explaining why it has removed TikTok.

First, TikTok was banned. Then, on Saturday evening, January 18th, it disappeared. Then, the next day, it reappeared. It may be back for good, but any time things get this uncertain, it’s always a good idea to make sure you have backups of all your content — just in case.

While the app offers instructions on how to download single videos, TikTok apparently doesn’t like the idea of allowing its creators to bulk download their videos. You can also download — in TXT or JSON format — a certain amount of your data, which, according to the support page, “may include but is not limited to your username, watch video history, comment history, and privacy settings.” When I tried it, it did not include my videos. 

TikTok’s US shutdown last night appears to be affecting users outside the country as well. People have taken to social media in the hours since, complaining they can’t access the app despite living in non-US countries, and it’s not always clear why.

In some cases, the problem appears to be using a VPN that routes traffic through the US. One user on Reddit, who says they’re based in the UK, saw the message that’s supposed to be displayed only in the US overnight and found that a quick location change in their VPN app fixed it:

President-elect Donald Trump says he wants service providers like Apple and Google to put TikTok back online in the US, and he proposed creating a joint venture where the US owns 50 percent of the app.

“I’m asking companies not to let TikTok stay dark!” Trump wrote on Truth Social Sunday. “I will issue an executive order on Monday to extend the period of time before the law’s prohibitions take effect, so that we can make a deal to protect our national security. The order will also confirm that there will be no liability for any company that helped keep TikTok from going dark before my order.”

With TikTok, CapCut, and Marvel Snap shut down in the US, Apple has taken the unusual step of articulating why it’s following the law banning ByteDance apps and removing them from the App Stores for the Mac, iPhone, and other devices.

Before the ban went into effect, the Biden administration released a statement saying enforcement of the law “must fall to the next Administration.” Still, it didn’t stop the law from taking effect this weekend after TikTok’s appeal to the Supreme Court failed.

The divest-or-ban law aimed at TikTok is also taking down other ByteDance-linked apps, including the popular card game Marvel Snap. The app suddenly cut off access Saturday night, seemingly without warning, surprising gamers who weren’t aware of its connection to ByteDance.

The card game battler set in the Marvel universe is developed by Second Dinner, which is based in California. But the game is published by Nuverse, a company owned by ByteDance. As a result, it’s subject to the same shutdown order.

TikTok has gone dark in the US now that the ban-or-divest law passed last year is taking effect. The app has been removed from both Apple and Google’s app stores, it’s unavailable on the web, and users who open the app are blocked from viewing videos.

The shutdown has the astonishing effect of removing a social network used by 170 million people in the US, according to TikTok’s own numbers. While other social media platforms have experienced outages, even prolonged ones, no network as big as TikTok has simply shut down without any indication of if or when it will come back online.

TikTok is officially going dark in the United States now that a federal ban on the app is set to go into effect on January 19th. Around 9PM ET, the app began notifying people in the US with a message that said the ban will “make our services temporarily unavailable.”

The message goes on to say that TikTok is “working to restore our service in the US as quickly as possible” — an outcome that will require action from the incoming Trump administration one way or another. A similar message is showing up in the CapCut video editor, which is also owned by TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance.