TikTok fans will have rejoiced that despite urgent warnings, their beloved app was only shuttered for a matter of hours on Saturday and Sunday, Jan. 18-19. But even though it sprang back to life after President Trump said the ban was deferred, neither the Apple App Store nor the Google Play Store have TikTok in their U.S. stores. What’s going on?
If you can still access the app, you may have scarcely noticed the activity behind the scenes, though it led to an unheard of response from Apple. But if you had deleted the app, you can’t get it back and if the app developer has updates it wants you to apply, you’re out of luck there, as well. That’s because both Apple and Google are reluctant to offer the app again.
That’s because although the President issued an executive order staying the ban for 75 days while a buyer was found, the legislation is still in place and companies like Apple are right to be cautious. Some lawyers say this 75-day extension falls into a gray area.
Saurabh Vishnubhakat, a professor at the Cardozo School of Law, says that while a court might tolerate a ‘temporary suspension’ of enforcement it is less likely to accept a ‘wholesale repudiation’ of the law,” The Guardian reports.
The professor goes on, “Although the attorney general is free to declare what they think the law is – or what the president thinks the law is – it is ultimately for the courts to decide whether the law has actually been violated,” he says.
After all, if the President changed his mind, he could choose to enforce the statute against select companies, presumably if there was a falling out between tech and commander-in-chief.
Some normality has returned, with one app, Marvel Snap, returning to full life, something it achieved by switching to a new publisher “to make sure this never happens again”.
If the ban were applied, Apple could be in trouble as a $5,000 fine per user they help access TikTok. If just 100,000 App Store users downloaded TikTok, that could potentially mean a fine of $500 million.
So, when will the apps be back? I suspect that not until the future of TikTok is clear, perhaps by being sold to another company or some other solution, with App stores dare to reinstate it. We’re looking at weeks, if not months, I think.
