TikTok voluntarily shuts down service in the U.S. with divest-or-ban law set to take effect
CBSN
Washington — TikTok voluntarily shut down service in the U.S. late Saturday night, cutting off access to tens of millions of users after the Supreme Court this week upheld a law that effectively banned it over concerns about its ties to China.
The law passed by Congress last year gave TikTok's Chinese parent company ByteDance until Jan. 19 to divest from TikTok or be cut off from U.S. app stores and hosting services. TikTok said a sale wasn't possible and challenged the law in court, but it was rejected by a unanimous Supreme Court on Friday.
The court's decision said the divest-or-ban law does not violate the free speech rights of TikTok or its 170 million users in the U.S., agreeing with the government's position that the platform could be used by China to collect a vast amount of sensitive information on Americans.
