Category: Technology

Watch: How TikTok ‘went dark’ in the US TikTok is resuming services to its 170 million users in US after President-elect Donald Trump said he would issue an executive order to give the app a reprieve when he takes office on Monday. On Saturday evening, the Chinese-owned app stopped working for American users, after a law banning it on national security grounds came into effect. Trump, who had previously backed a ban of the platform, promised on Sunday to delay implementation of the law and allow more time for a deal to be made. TikTok then said that it was in the process of “restoring service”. Soon after, the app started working again and a popup message to its millions of users thanked Trump by name. In a statement, the company thanked the incoming president for “providing the necessary clarity and assurance” and said it would work with Trump “on a long-term solution that keeps TikTok in the United States”. TikTok CEO Shou Chew is expected to attend Trump’s inauguration Monday. Posting on Truth Social, a social media platform he owns, Trump said on Sunday: “I’m asking companies not to let TikTok stay dark! 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.” TikTok’s parent company, Bytedance, previously ignored a law requiring it to sell its US operations to avoid a ban. The law was upheld by Supreme Court on Friday and went into effect on Sunday. It is unclear what legal authority Trump will have to delay the implementation of a law that is already in effect. But it expected that his government will not enforce the ban if he issues an executive order. It’s an about-face from his previous position. Trump had backed a TikTok ban, but has more recently professed a “warm spot” for the app, touting the billions of views he says his videos attracted on the platform during last year’s presidential campaign. For its part, President Joe Biden’s administration had already said that it would not enforce the law in its last hours in office and instead allow the process to play out under the incoming Trump administration. But TikTok had pulled its services anyway on Saturday evening, before the swift restoration of access on Sunday. The short-form video platform is wildly popular among its many millions of US users. It has also proved a valuable tool for American political campaigns to reach younger voters. Under the law passed last April, the US version of the app had to be removed from app stores and web-hosting services if its Chinese owner ByteDance did not sell its US operations. TikTok had argued before the Supreme Court that the law violated free speech protections for its users in the country. The law was passed with support from both Republicans and Democrats in Congress and was upheld unanimously by Supreme Court justices earlier this week. The issue exposes a rift on a key national security issues between the president-elect and members of his own party. His pick for Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, had vocally supported the ban. “TikTok extended the Chinese Communist Party’s power and influence into our own nation, right under our noses,” he said last April. But he seemed to defer to the president-elect when a journalist asked if he supported Trump’s efforts to restore the ban. “If I’m confirmed as secretary of State, I’ll work for the president,” he told Punchbowl media last week. After Trump intervened on Sunday morning, Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Tom Cotton, a Republican senator from Arkansas, broke with Trump by saying that any company that helps TikTok stay online would be breaking the law. “Any company that hosts, distributes, services, or otherwise facilitates communist-controlled TikTok could face hundreds of billions of dollars of ruinous liability under the law, not just from DOJ, but also under securities law, shareholder lawsuits, and state AGs,” he wrote on social media. An executive order that goes against the law could be fought in court. Several states have also sued the platform, opening up the possibility to TikTok being banned by local jurisdictions, even if it is available nationally. Although the platform went live again on Sunday for existing users, the question of whether third-parties – hosting platforms or app stores like Google or Apple – could support TikTok in the US remains murky, says University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias. The app had been removed from those stores in anticipation of the ban. “It is murky,” he told the BBC. In a post on Truth media, Trump promised to shield companies from liability, opening the door to TikTok being available on Apple and Google again. “The order will also confirm that there will be no liability for any company that helped keep TikTok from going dark before my order,” the president-elect said on Truth Social Sunday. But during the Supreme Court hearings, Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar was adamant that an executive order cannot change the law retroactively. “Whatever the new president does, doesn’t change that reality for these companies,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor said during the hearings. “That’s right,” Prelogar said. Professor Tobias said that the law does include a provision that would allow the president to postpone the ban for up to 90 days, if he can show that the company is making substantial progress on alleviating national security issues. But, he said, it’s not clear whether those conditions have been met. “The best thing Trump could do is work with Congress, and not potentially be in violation of the law or have any questions left hanging,” he said. “I don’t know that we’re going to know a whole lot more until we see that executive order.” Source link

Getty Images 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. And one of Trump’s first actions after resuming office was to sign an executive order giving TikTok another 75 days to comply with the law that demanded it was blocked if its owners would not sell it. So what happens now? Has Trump overturned the ban? An executive order is an instruction from the president which has the weight of the law behind it. But Trump’s order does not overturn the ban law. Instead it tells the US attorney general not to enforce it for now – something experts had expected would be his first move. That buys time for his administration to, as the order puts it, “determine the appropriate course of action.” Trump has floated the possibility of TikTok becoming a joint venture, telling reporters he was seeking a 50-50 partnership between “the United States” and ByteDance, though he did not give any further details on how that might work. For now though the order creates a situation where the president is directly opposing a ruling made by the Supreme Court, which on Friday upheld a law to ban TikTok. It said the ban was “designed to prevent China – a designated foreign adversary – from leveraging its control over ByteDance to capture the personal data of US TikTok users”. Getty Images Technically, even after the 75 days have passed, it would be possible for Trump to allow the law to stand but tell the Department of Justice (DoJ) to continue to ignore it. The government would be effectively telling Apple and Google they will not be punished for continuing to allow people to download TikTok onto their devices, meaning the law would remain in place but would essentially be redundant. Obviously, the firms might be uncomfortable about breaking the law even if they have been told doing so is fine – as it would be effectively requiring them to take the president’s word for it that they will not face punishment. Who could buy TikTok? When he signed the order, Trump said “every rich person has called me” to signal their interest in TikTok. Up until now, ByteDance has been resolute that no sale of its prize asset in the US is on the table. But could that change now? Potential buyers continue to line up – with Bloomberg News reporting on Tuesday that the firm was looking at a sale to billionaire Elon Musk, though TikTok described this as “pure fiction”. Trump’s former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and billionaire businessman Frank McCourt are among those who have previously expressed an interest in buying it. Mr McCourt, a former owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team, said he had secured $20bn in verbal commitments from a consortium of investors to bid for TikTok. There is an even more left field – and considerably less serious – proposed owner. The biggest YouTuber in the world Jimmy Donaldson – AKA MrBeast – has claimed he is now in the running to make a deal after he had billionaires reaching out to him about it. What about TikTok’s sister apps? Watch: Can young Americans live without TikTok? TikTok was the only ByteDance app which immediately became available again after the ban – though only for people who already had the app. It’s still unavailable to download from Apple and Google’s app stores. But on Tuesday morning, other apps owned by the company began to become available to use in the US once again. Two which remain inaccessible are Lemon8, another social media app which has been compared to Pinterest, and CapCut, a video editing app. Meanwhile Marvel Snap, a digital card game published by a ByteDance subsidiary, is now available once again after it too went down – which caught even its US-based developer Second Dinner off guard. What platforms could people turn to instead? TikTok says it has 170 million users in the US who, on average, spent 51 minutes per day on the app in 2024. Experts say, if Trump’s efforts fail, rivals such as Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts may benefit. Users bring advertisers – so this could be a big financial boost to those platforms. “Chief marketing officers who we’ve spoken with confirmed that they will divert their media dollars to Meta and Google if they can no longer advertise on TikTok,” said Kelsey Chickering, an analyst at market research company Forrester. Other potential winners include Twitch, which made its name on hosting livestreams – a popular feature on TikTok. Twitch is well known particularly to gamers, though it continues to grow with other content. Other Chinese-owned platforms, such as Xiaohongshu – known as RedNote among its US users – have seen rapid growth in the US and the UK. Source link

Incoming first lady Melania Trump has launched a cryptocurrency on the eve of her husband’s inauguration as US president. The announcement comes after President-elect Donald Trump launched the $Trump cryptocurrency. Both coins have risen but have seen volatile trade. “The Official Melania Meme is live! You can buy $Melania now,” she posted on the social platform X on Sunday. Disclaimers on the websites of both the $Trump and $Melania coins said they were “not intended to be, or the subject of” an investment opportunity or a security. According to the CoinMarketCap website, $Trump has a total market valuation of about $12bn (£9.8bn), while $Melania’s stands at around $1.7bn. Trump had previously called crypto a “scam” but during the 2024 election campaign became the first presidential candidate to accept digital assets as donations. During the campaign, his family launched a cryptocurrency company called World Liberty Financial – which aims to lead “a financial revolution by dismantling the stranglehold of traditional financial institutions”, and is also selling a crypto coin. The new Trump coin was launched from Trump Organization affiliate CIC Digital LLC, which is linked to previous sales of crypto collectable NFTs launched in 2022 that made millions of dollars but have since fallen dramatically in value for their owners. According to CoinGecko, the NFTs once sold for more than $1,000 but have since dropped in value to around $300. On the campaign trail, Trump also said he would create a strategic Bitcoin stockpile and appoint financial regulators that take a more positive stance towards digital assets. That spurred expectations that he would strip back regulations on the crypto industry. In the wake of Trump’s victory, Bitcoin jumped to a record high of around $109,000 according to crypto trading platform Coinbase. On Friday, the incoming artificial intelligence (AI) and crypto tsar David Sacks held a “Crypto Ball” in Washington, DC. Other cryptocurrencies, including Dogecoin – which has been promoted by high-profile Trump supporter Elon Musk – have also risen sharply this year. Under President Joe Biden, regulators cited concerns about fraud and money laundering as they cracked down on crypto companies by suing exchanges. The growth of Dogecoin has significantly increased the interest in so-called “meme coins” – cryptocurrencies typically linked to a viral internet trend or moment. Melania’s Meme coin has come from her own incorporated company MKT World LLC – a firm she has used since 2021 for various ventures including selling portraits of her as first lady. Meme coins can be created and launched by anyone, and there are thousands in existence. With their profile and social media presence, Trump coin and Melania coin have already entered the top 100 coins in terms of value, and Melania’s coin is now worth more than AI entrepreneur Sam Altman’s Worldcoin. Source link

BBC Sir Humphrey Appleby was played by Sir Nigel Hawthorne in Yes, Minister Government workers will soon be given access to a set of tools powered by artificial intelligence (AI), named after a scheming parliamentary official from the classic sitcom Yes, Minister. The government says the assistants – called Humphrey – will “speed up the work of civil servants” and save money by replacing cash that would have been spent on consultants. But the decision to name the AI after Sir Humphrey Appleby, a character described as “devious and controlling”, has raised eyebrows. Tim Flagg, chief operating officer of trade body UKAI, said the name risked “undermining” the government’s mission to embrace the tech. Science and technology secretary Peter Kyle will announce more digital tools later on Tuesday, including two apps which will store government documents, including digital driving licences. The announcement is part of the government’s overhaul of digital services and comes after their AI Opportunities Action Plan announced last week. “Humphrey for me is a name which is very associated with the Machiavellian character from Yes, Minister,” says Mr Flagg from UKAI, which represents the AI sector. “That immediately makes people who aren’t in that central Whitehall office think that this is something which is not going to be empowering and not going to be helping them.” Most of the tools in the Humphrey suite are generative AI models – in this case, technology which takes large amounts of information and summarises it in a more digestible format – to be used by the civil service. Among them is Consult, which summarises people’s responses to public calls for information. The government says this is currently done by expensive external consultants who bill the taxpayer “around £100,000 every time.” Parlex, which the government says helps policymakers search through previous parliamentary debates on a certain topic, is described by The Times as “designed to avoid catastrophic political rows by predicting how MPs will respond”. Other changes announced include more efficient data sharing between departments. “I think the government is doing the right thing,” says Mr Flagg. “They do have some good developers – I have every confidence they are going to be creating a great product.” Jim Hacker Gets the Call – from Yes, Minister Source link

President Trump has signed an executive order granting TikTok a 75-day extension to comply with a law that requires a sale or ban of the platform. He says during that time, the US will not enforce the law passed by Congress last year and signed by former President Joe Biden. The order was among a slew of directives Trump signed on Monday evening. Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, he said: “I tell you what. Every rich person has called me about TikTok.” When asked by a reporter why he’s had a change of heart since trying to ban TikTok in 2020, Trump responded: “Because I got to use it.” He floated the possibility of a joint venture, saying he was seeking a 50-50 partnership between “the United States” and its Chinese owner ByteDance. But he did not give any further details on how that might work. Trump also said potential new trade tariffs on China could be contingent on a deal over the platform’s ownership. If Beijing rejected a deal “it would be somewhat of a hostile act”, he said. On Saturday evening, the Chinese-owned app stopped working for American users, after a law banning it on national security grounds came into effect. It resumed services to its 170 million users in the US after Trump said he would issue an executive order to give the app a reprieve when he took office. But on Monday it was still not available to download from the Apple and Google app stores. The Biden administration had argued that TikTok could be used by China as a tool for spying and political manipulation. Opponents of a ban have cited freedom of speech as a reason for keeping the platform open. TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, previously ignored a law requiring it to sell its US operations to avoid a ban. The law was upheld by Supreme Court on Friday and went into effect on Sunday, but the Biden White House said it would leave implementing the law to the incoming administration given the timing. Trump had backed a ban of the platform during his first term in office. The newly signed executive order places him at odds with many members of Congress from his own party. On Sunday in a post on X, Republican Senator Tom Cotton said any company that “hosts, distributes, services or otherwise facilitates communist-controlled TikTok” could face hundreds of billions of dollars in fines. Cotton said liability could stem not just from the Department of Justice, “but also under securities law, shareholder lawsuits, and state AGs [attorneys general]. Think about it”. TikTok chief executive Shou Zi Chew attended Trump’s inauguration on Monday along with other big technology bosses, including Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos. Earlier on Monday, YouTube star MrBeast posted a TikTok video of him apparently from a private jet on his way to make an official offer to buy the short video platform. The post gave no other details about the offer, only that it would be “crazy”. Other companies, billionaires and celebrities have expressed interest in buying TikTok, including X owner Musk and an investor from the TV show Shark Tank, Kevin O’Leary. Additional reporting by Michelle Fleury Source link