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TikTok said it would restore its US service Sunday, having shut down for 14 hours after a national ban went into effect.
The apparent reversal came after Donald Trump said in a social media post that he will issue an executive order to delay the ban Monday after his inauguration — which TikTok’s CEO is attending.
The Chinese-owned app’s long-term future remains unclear: On Sunday, Trump floated a scenario where the US government would buy a 50% stake, or it could be sold to an American owner. The US embargo could also be a blueprint for other countries that are worried about China’s influence to pursue their own bans. Several Republican lawmakers, meanwhile, signaled they would stand by the terms of the law governing the ban, including House Speaker Mike Johnson.
There’s another path, The Atlantic argued: Americans could simply move on, as many had already begun to do, and the app could join MySpace and Vine in the annals of social-media-that-was.