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TikTok Goes Dark in the U.S. Before Shutdown Takes Effect; Trump To "Most Likely" Delay TikTok Ban for 90 Days. Aired 11-11:30 pm ET

Aired January 18, 2025 - 23:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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[23:00:25]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

BEN HUNTE, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, wherever you are in the world, you are now in the CNN Newsroom. I'm Ben Hunte in Atlanta, and it is so good to have you with me.

TikTok has now gone dark in the U.S., less than an hour before a ban was slated to go into effect. Let's take a look at the TikTok homepage. A message says, "TikTok isn't available right now. A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S. Unfortunately, that means you can't use TikTok for now."

The question is, what will happen next? 170 million American users could see service return as soon as Monday when Donald Trump takes office. The President-elect says he will, quote, "most likely" delay a ban on TikTok for 90 days, but he's not made a final decision.

The app threatened to go offline on Sunday, unless the Biden administration assured the company there would be no punishment for violations. The White House called the warning a stunt, and said the issue now belongs to Trump.

Let's now go to CNN's Brian Stelter in New York. Brian, can you just give me the latest, please? What is going on?

BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA ANALYST: The latest is that TikTok has blocked itself out a little bit earlier than expected. And TikTok is saying this is due to the service providers that make sure the app stays online. Think about any app you use, any website you visit.

There are a number of connections in between you and that company. In the case of TikTok, app stores like Google and Apple make the app work on your phone. And network companies, web server companies like Amazon and Oracle make your videos load on your phone.

TikTok is saying that those service providers, those, I hate to use the phrase middlemen, but those middlemen are the reasons why this is happening. TikTok is indicating that those service providers were concerned that the Biden administration would somehow penalize them, even though, as you just said, the Biden administration said it was taking its hands off, not going to deal with this, saving it for Trump.

There is this strange situation going on right now where TikTok is using all of this power, all of this leverage it has to put pressure on the incoming United States president, Trump, to solve this problem. And I think we should view this blackout that's happened in the United States as part of TikTok's negotiating power with Trump.

HUNTE: Yes, indeed. And I suppose we're just waiting to see what is going to happen next, right? I mean, what does that look like? Everything's happening right now.

STELTER: Yeah, we don't know. What we do know is that there's never been a moment like this in the history of American technology, where basically every American, right, has an Apple phone or a Samsung phone, either Apple or Android. Those are the gatekeepers.

And those app stores are the conduit for all of these services. Apple has removed TikTok, but also Lemonade and CapCut, all of the ByteDance apps from the app store. That's notable because in the past few days, TikTok's basically alternative service, Lemonade, was becoming one of the number one apps in the United States.

All of a sudden, in the past 30 minutes, they're all gone. This shows the power both of this U.S. government law, but also the power of these private technology companies to gatekeep what is accessible and what is not. TikTok is saying this is all about politics, and they are emphasizing and embracing President-elect Trump, saying Trump is going to solve this problem.

And I think in some ways it sets up Trump, yes, to both be the hero or the savior to have this dramatic moment on Monday, but it also underscores the national security concerns that led to this point to begin with. Trump is the one who brought up TikTok's dangers five years ago. He's the one that talked about a ban.

He actually said the other lawmakers were just catching up to his view years later. But he made a dramatic reversal, and here we are today with the Biden administration set to take the blame for the TikTok blackout. I don't know about you, but everybody I know, my dentist, my babysitter, they've been asking me, what's going to happen to TikTok?

And now a lot of people in the United States are going to wake up in the morning, their favorite app is not going to work. Their favorite source of entertainment is suddenly not going to work, and they're going to want to blame someone. That's the next step here.

HUNTE: Yes, indeed. Well, we also have Gloria Pazmino in New York and Marc Stewart in Beijing with us.

Gloria, I'm going to come to you. So this has caught everyone off guard because we were expecting this to be at midnight Eastern time. Suddenly, I was just scrolling through TikTok and boom, I couldn't access it. I mean, were you surprised? What's going on? [23:05:05]

GLORIA PAZMINO, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I -- you know, I certainly noticed that we were running way ahead of schedule, and I want to just pick up on the last point that Brian made because he's so right that people are going to find, people are going to be looking for someone to blame. Who can we point the finger at and who is going to fix this? This is an app that's used by 170 million Americans.

This is a place where they get their news, their information, their entertainment, information about the world around them. And in the message that TikTok just posted in the last hour saying that the app has gone dark, there is a specific call out to the incoming president. It says, we are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office. Please stay tuned.

So when we talk about leverage and negotiation and even the pressure that the app is exerting at this moment, putting the pressure on the incoming administration to enact the delay that incoming President Trump has said that he is open to doing. Remember, we are having a real whiplash moment here.

It was former president Trump who during his first term in office said that TikTok should be banned. Now he's had a total reversal saying that he is willing to do a 90-day delay of this law in order to see if they can work something out, figure out how to keep the app alive. As we know, the law that was passed in Congress requires TikTok to sell its algorithm to a non-Chinese company or person here in the United States.

That is what's at the core of this fight. The fact that there are issues of national security at hand, or at least that was the reason why lawmakers passed this law to ban the app here in the United States.

So a very clear call out from TikTok, the company saying to the incoming president, we are essentially counting on you to turn this thing back on come Monday.

HUNTE: Yes, indeed. We'll see if it gets turned back on. Brian and Gloria, thank you for that.

Marc, I want to come to you in Beijing, please. I'm just wondering, all of Western media is reporting on this. We're seeing our alerts pop off on our phones. Is China actually covering this story? Are you seeing the same kind of story happening over there?

MARC STEWART, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, if it's being covered, it's really being covered on Chinese social media. There is a tremendous amount of curiosity about it. And a lot of Chinese people have been weighing in on it every day.

In fact, they are supporting the CEO and the company itself, TikTok, because they are holding a firm stance that they're not being told by the United States what it can and cannot do. But here's what's interesting, Ben. You know, earlier, just a few days

ago, it was on Friday now, we know that President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping had a phone call. And as our colleague Pamela Brown reported, TikTok was one of those points of discussion.

Well, speaking about coverage in Chinese media, the phone call itself was recorded, but there was no mention, at least here in China, that TikTok was a point of discussion. Instead, when we looked at the readout from the Chinese government side of things, it was just a lot of diplomatic speak, a lot of messages of goodwill. TikTok was not part of that conversation.

But as far as what happens next, in many ways, this is all going to be in the hands of the United States, because China has been pretty firm. ByteDance, the Chinese company, the parent company of TikTok, has been very firm.

This platform is not for sale. Right now, China is making a big effort to present itself as the leader of a new world order. The last thing it wants, Ben, is to be told by American lawmakers and by the American government what it can and cannot do. And that would include a potential sale.

HUNTE: Yes, indeed. And the other thing is that people are sprinting to alternative apps, right? So, Marc, tell me a bit about people going to other apps. They're also Chinese-owned, or at least China seems to play a part in those apps and their development and data as well.

STEWART: Right. And I will tell you, Ben, as someone who lives in Beijing, as an American in Beijing, my Chinese friends and people I run into every day are just finding some humor about this new interest, this new attention to Chinese apps, such as RedNote. There are many others.

But eventually, there's also a feeling that this excitement, this trend will die down, because here in China, social media is heavily censored. There are a lot of topics, especially political topics. When they initially pop up, they are quickly removed. The government has a very close watch on those platforms.

[23:10:14]

So while Americans may be migrating now, it may be very short-lived. They may find a lot of frustration that the government does not allow topics that may be freely discussed on TikTok and other social apps, just is not going to be tolerated under a Chinese government monitor's eyes. Something else, Ben, that our viewers may find interesting, a lot of the American apps, such as Google, such as Facebook, X, Instagram, you cannot access them here in China. They are banned.

I'm able to access them because I have an American phone with an American SIM card. But for most Chinese citizens, the American apps and the American point of view, it's something that is blocked by what we know here as the electronic firewall, Ben.

HUNTE: Yes, indeed. For anyone just tuning in now, I just want to remind you that TikTok is not available in the U.S. We're seeing notifications saying, "A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S. Unfortunately, that means you can't use TikTok for now. We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office. Please stay tuned."

Brian, I'm going to come back to you. So we're looking at people flocking to these alternative apps. Just break down for me how is America going to be feeling about the fact that they've tried to potentially block people from using one app where their data was going to be potentially compromised. And now this could just be happening all over again.

STELTER: This is one of the best compliments I can pay to TikTok. No one's been able to rip it off. No one's been able to create a successful clone of TikTok.

Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, has tried. Other companies in the United States have tried, but none of them have succeeded. In fact, the stocks in companies like Snapchat have actually declined in recent days as opposed to surged when the Supreme Court ruled against TikTok.

There is an acceptance that TikTok is unique. It's uniquely addictive, I would say, sometimes in negative ways for some users. But there is no perfect clone. That being said, the number one app on the Apple and Google App Store in the United States in the last three, four, five days has been RedNote, a Chinese-owned app. Also, Lemonade, which is also owned by ByteDance.

Now, Lemonade is gone out of the App Store as of right now, just like TikTok. But this concern about Chinese-controlled apps, it's not going away if TikTok goes away. There are other beneficiaries of this moment as well, apps like Clapper and Flip that, frankly, a lot of people had not heard of a week ago. There have been a lot of new downloads.

But the most important point is that there is no perfect TikTok clone. And because it'll probably be back in 48 hours, it won't matter, right? We're in this strange, strange limbo situation where we're moving from one administration in the U.S. to another. And as soon as Trump takes office, he is probably going to try to fix this. He wants to be viewed as the hero in this moment.

Here's my big question, though, Ben. Trump can try to issue an executive order. He can try to create a pause. But he has to find American buyers. And there is no evidence that ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, wants to sell TikTok, right? Kevin O'Leary of Shark Tank fame has been out there making an offer. Others have allegedly made bids. But there's no evidence that TikTok wants to sell its U.S. assets. So that is going to be the challenge going forward.

HUNTE: Oh, it is going to be a big challenge as well. We're going to see, obviously, what happens over the next few hours, next couple of days. Gloria, I'm going to come back to you. Even just scrolling through Instagram right now, I'm seeing conspiracy theories about what has gone on here. Is this really about China? Is this really about data? What say you? What are your thoughts on that? What are you seeing?

PAZMINO: Well, look, I think it's certainly going to be a big part of the conversation in the next 48 hours. And I can tell you from personal experience that many of the people who I know that use the apps, their feeling is basically, you know, so much of our data and our information is already out there. You know, there's so much that we share, whether willingly or unwillingly, by using apps, our cell phones, location services.

There's just so much that is gathered about our day-to-day lives, our consumption, what we do, what we watch, what we eat, where we travel, that they almost feel like this whole issue around national security is not an issue for them.

To the point that Brian was making, the fact that RedNote is the most downloaded app on the App Store right now, that is a Chinese-owned app. So there certainly does not seem to be this feeling among users that because there is this national security concern around TikTok that it's going to keep them from using the app.

[23:15:13]

Now, this question of whether or not there's going to be an American buyer, that is a big question. You know, the algorithm does not come cheap. And as you said, TikTok has showed no sign of being willing to sell. I think there's also a larger question that we are looking at here, that essentially what the Supreme Court said, you know, this law has to go into effect unless they sell to a non-Chinese entity, right? The question of the Chinese government and who owns the app.

When we know that other apps like Facebook, Meta, Twitter are now known as X, they are also getting access to our information. Of course, we don't see them as national security threats and rivals on the world stage, the way we see China here in the United States. But it certainly just raises that question about who has control over our privacy and what can they do with that information.

HUNTE: That's indeed. Well, I know we were caught off guard by this. I'm sure there are millions of content creators that also have been caught off guard by this news, even after the days and weeks of planning we've put into this. But thank you, Brian Stelter, Gloria Pazmino and Marc Stewart. Thank you for joining me. Really appreciate that.

We have much more ahead on this breaking news. Please stay with CNN.

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[23:20:14]

HUNTE: Welcome back. A reminder TikTok has now gone dark in the U.S. It happened just over an hour before a ban was slated to go into effect.

Let's take a look at the TikTok homepage. So if you log onto the app and you literally scroll in, there we go. It says, "Sorry, TikTok isn't available right now. A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S. Unfortunately, that means you can't use TikTok for now." It goes on to say, "We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office. Please stay tuned."

Well, obviously, I want to dig more into this story. So joining us now from New York is Kaya Yurieff. She is a reporter for "The Information."

Kaya, thank you so much for joining me at sudden notice. How are you doing?

KAYA YURIEFF, REPORTER, THE INFORMATION: Good, how are you? What a night.

HUNTE: Yeah, what a night. Can you believe after all of this planning, we were caught off guard, literally an hour out. How did you find out about TikTok suddenly being cut just a few minutes ago?

YURIEFF: Well, I have just been obsessively opening the app and seeing, I mean, we had a pop-up notification two hours ago. It was a little bit different than the language that we're seeing now, but you could dismiss it and keep scrolling. But you started seeing the app get glitchy and then it finally went offline. It's off from the app stores now as well.

HUNTE: And how surprised were you then? Is this something that everyone is now talking about, obviously on this end, but people contacting you asking about this?

YURIEFF: For the past week, my phone has been blowing up with creators, their managers, advertisers, everyone asking, what's going to happen? Is it really going to go down? What can Trump do? I mean, these are all the big questions on everyone's mind.

HUNTE: I don't know if you're a gambling sort of person, but let's take a bet right now. Do you think this is actually the end of TikTok in the U.S.?

YURIEFF: It's so hard to say because Trump has indicated that he wants to save TikTok. But the question is, what are his options to bring it back? And TikTok was so confident that it was going to win this legal fight. And then Friday, we get the Supreme Court decision. So I'm not surprised to see it down today, but I wouldn't be, you know, who knows what's going to happen? It's really hard to say.

HUNTE: We've been seeing a lot of conspiracy theories online talking about the fact that people don't necessarily believe that this is all just about China's influence and about their data potentially being compromised by Chinese authorities. Do you think that there are other things at play in these decisions that U.S. politicians have made around TikTok?

YURIEFF: I think what's so interesting about the situation is that Congress doesn't agree on anything. This was a bipartisan bill that passed very quickly through the House and the Senate. So they have been very, very concerned about these national security issues.

So that's really been top of mind. But I think for American users and creators, they love this app. They love the recommendation algorithm. So I'm not surprised to see conspiracy theories swirling. But it is interesting to see Congress so united on a decision. And same thing with the Supreme Court. They upheld this law unanimously.

HUNTE: Well, let's talk about the fact that people do love this app so much. What is it about TikTok that's so unique that is going to make people really miss it if it does go?

YURIEFF: It's really that recommendation algorithm. For years, Instagram and YouTube and Snapchat have tried to replicate. They have shorts. They have Spotlight. They have Instagram Reels. But nothing has been as good as serving users the videos that they exactly want to see. It sucks you in. It brings you different and new voices and triggers. And that's really been the magic of TikTok.

HUNTE: But there are negatives with that as well, right? I mean, I started off as a YouTuber. And at that point, you kind of had to search for a video. You had to put in what you actually wanted to see. And then you watched it. And it wasn't even like an autoplay function at that point. It was literally, you watch a video and then it's done when you're done. And that's it.

With TikTok, it's this endless scrolling. And you have then seen people coming forward and saying that they're really concerned about the addictive features of it. I mean, is that something that people may have been concerned with to the point that this could be a positive, this ban?

YURIEFF: Definitely. I mean, we see in Australia, right, they're moving to ban social media apps, not just TikTok, but for young people, right? There is this concern about addiction, especially for younger users.

I think the concern with Congress, especially was with China and the possibility that they could manipulate what Americans are seeing. Because like you pointed out, you're just seeing the scroll of recommended videos. So there is definitely, you know, potential for misinformation to spread, and there's definitely negatives of it. But I think so many people have focused on kind of the positives and what they love about TikTok and the videos that they see. But yes, it's certainly, people's screen time is definitely going to go down this week.

[23:25:07]

HUNTE: And I wonder what about the actual people relying on TikTok for an income. You've done a lot of reporting into TikTok. Is the company doing anything to support people who need it, whose rent relies on them making content and creating these videos on a daily basis? What's going to happen to them?

YURIEFF: Yeah, I mean, this is potentially so catastrophic for the millions of creators that rely on this app. Same thing with small businesses, right? TikTok has a huge e-commerce business that it's been building recently. And there are hundreds of thousands of sellers that also rely on TikTok for sales.

So, you know, as -- creators have had time, right, you know, Trump moved to ban this app in 2020, right? So creators have known that this is a possibility that this app could go away. And of course, they've built followings on other apps, but TikTok is so unique. And for the creators who have their biggest following, I mean, their income from TikTok just disappeared overnight.

HUNTE: And are there -- well, are we -- are we worried about what's going to happen over the next few hours then? What else could be occurring?

YURIEFF: Yeah, I mean, I don't see a scenario where TikTok goes back up on Sunday, right? We're in -- we're almost in Sunday now. We're still Saturday night. But, you know, Biden has sort of said, the Biden administration has said, this is Trump's problem now. So I think for the next 24 hours, we can expect TikTok to stay down. And then Monday, you know, we have a new president. We'll see if there's anything he can do. He has indicated that he wants to, you know, day one, enact an executive order. The question though is, is that going to hold up in court?

I mean, again, this was something that was upheld unanimously by the Supreme Court. It's a law passed by Congress. So it's a question of what Trump can do. But I think over the next 24 hours, we can expect it to stay dark.

HUNTE: Well, everything is changing minute by minute. I'm sure we're going to speak again. So thank you, Kaya Yurieff, for that. We'll speak very, very soon. I'm Ben Hunte in Atlanta. More on our breaking news at the top of the hour.

See you soon.

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