After briefly going dark in the US to comply with the divest-or-ban law targeting ByteDance that went into effect on January 19th, TikTok quickly came back online. It eventually reappeared in the App Store and Google Play as negotiations between the US and China continued, and Donald Trump continued to sign extensions directing officials not to apply the law’s penalties. Finally, in mid-December, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew told employees that the agreements to create TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC, which includes Oracle, Silver Lake, and MGX as part owners, had been signed, and the deal was expected to close on January 22nd, 2026. The deal did close on that date, with TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC saying that it would oversee data protection, the security of a newly-retrained algorithm, content moderation, and validating the source code of the app on an “ongoing basis.” Read on for all the latest news on the TikTok ban law in the US.
After briefly going dark in the US to comply with the divest-or-ban law targeting ByteDance that went into effect on January 19th, TikTok quickly came back online. It eventually reappeared in the App Store and Google Play as negotiations between the US and China continued, and Donald Trump continued to sign extensions directing officials not to apply the law’s penalties. Finally, in mid-December, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew told employees that the agreements to create TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC, which includes Oracle, Silver Lake, and MGX as part owners, had been signed, and the deal was expected to close on January 22nd, 2026. The deal did close on that date, with TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC saying that it would oversee data protection, the security of a newly-retrained algorithm, content moderation, and validating the source code of the app on an “ongoing basis.” Read on for all the latest news on the TikTok ban law in the US.
