TikTok, the Witch is Dead

It's official, TikTok is no more. In the US that is.

The Wikipedia article was inevitably changed from "is" to "was" for a moment despite the fact that TikTok is still operating in many other countries in a classic demonstration of US defaultism, but I digress. American TikTok is no more.

The cord was cut just a few minutes ago as of writing, with US users being greeted with this notification:

Yes, they actually namedropped Trump.

For a little backstory, in March of last year the United States House of Representatives passed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications act (PAFACA), basically giving ByteDance, TikTok's Chinese-based parent company, an ultimatum: sell up shop or get forcibly kicked out.

What this means is that ByteDance had to divest itself of TikTok by the 19th of January of this year, or the app would have to be shut down in America.

Time went by, and ByteDance defiantly sat on it's sinking ship, refusing to budge. Eventually, the date arrived and a plethora of heartfelt goodbye videos filled the TikTok home pages. A few hours later, TikTok officially shut up shop in the US.

Donald Trump gets back into office tomorrow (sadly) and has made plans to work with TikTok on delaying the ban, despite it already having happened, and eventually permanently reinstating it. Which is odd considering this whole thing was his idea. Oh well.

I'm tired, man. It's only January...