Canadian TikTok users may have noticed a lack of new content from American creators on Sunday when the app stopped working in the United States, but then began to reappear.
TikTok said on Sunday it was restoring service to American users after President-elect Donald Trump said he would try to stop a court-ordered ban on the platform with an executive order on his first day in office.
Trump said his order would give the app’s parent company, based in China, more time to find an approved buyer.
On Friday, the US Supreme Court announced that it had unanimously upheld a federal law banning TikTok starting Sunday unless ByteDance sells the platform.
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American users began receiving an in-app message about the ban on Saturday night, saying they cannot use the platform “for now,” but some of them reported that the app was working again on Sunday afternoon.
However, TikTok was still not available for download in the US Apple and Google app stores.
The US Supreme Court ban does not extend to Canada, which ordered the dissolution of TikTok’s Canadian business in November after a national security review of ByteDance.
TikTok has filed a legal challenge to fight Canada’s dissolution order, which stopped short of ordering people in the country to stay away from the app.
Following the Supreme Court announcement, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew indicated that Trump had committed to working with the company to find a solution to keep the app available in the US.
Trump wrote in a post on his Fact Social account on Sunday that his order would extend the period of time before “bans” under US law “take effect.”
The United States became interested in banning TikTok in recent years because it was concerned about Chinese national security laws that force organizations in the country to assist in intelligence gathering.
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