No. It's a big political statement to include political messaging and plead to political figures when you shut down. Then to praise those political figures afterwards is additional political messaging.
No, many users are sharing the theory that the downtime was to allow meta or google to take over the backend. Content delivery is different on the app now. For example, ads being served during videos not between videos.
There was no deadline, the app stores didn’t need to remove it.
The Biden administration said it would be left to the Trump administration to review, they had no reason to shut it down. It’s purely to force Trumps hand a bit.
> As of January 19, the Protecting Americans from Foreign
Adversary Controlled Applications Act will make it unlaw-
ful for companies in the United States to provide services to
distribute, maintain, or update the social media platform
TikTok
That is simply a topical remark within the judgement denying the injunction. It isn't relevant to what is enforceable or being enforced. The Act in question doesn't contain wording that implies that TikTok would have been required to be taken immediately offline, as the act requires enforcement by the FTC, which hasn't yet moved on the matter.
“It is a stunt, and we see no reason for TikTok or other companies to take actions in the next few days before the Trump Administration takes office on Monday. We have laid out our position clearly and straightforwardly: actions to implement this law will fall to the next administration. So TikTok and other companies should take up any concerns with them.”
Please do some research next time before accusing people of spreading lies.
Thanks. So that was between friday night and today, that means it would also be true that Bytedance could not rely on the autonomous aspects of the US government to not create liability, unless given an explicit assurance.
I wouldn't say following the law would be purely to force a hand, I would say multiple things can be true at once. They still had liability.
Other government agencies, like the SEC, has been filing court cases all the way till the last minute even though they’ll likely get dropped tomorrow. It is understandable to take a risk averse approach for a company.
The Biden administration said it wasn't going to initiate enforcement proceedings in the last 24 hours of their administration.
It did not, nor did it have the authority to, waive the apps stores requirement under the law to do that. To remove the potential for future enforcement actions (up to 5 years in the future) punishing them for failing to comply with the law. Neither will Trump even once he is president unless and until amongst other things ByteDance signs legally binding documents that they will divest from TikTok within 90 days.
The app stores removed the app in accordance with that timeline too.