TikTok, Lemon8 and the Last Day of the Decree: Standing up to the Biden Administration in the Light of the U.S. Digital Civil Liberation Law
It’s the final outcome of legislation Congress passed last year that requires TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to either sell the app’s American operations or face a nationwide ban. The US does not have a centralized infrastructure that would block Americans from accessing specific apps or websites.
Similar notifications appear on other apps owned by ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, which is based in China and sits at the core of the controversy over a popular video app that, at least until Saturday, had 170 million users in the US. Video-editing app CapCut, photo- and video-sharing app Lemon8, and others have now gone dark in the US.
“It’s a blatant violation of the First Amendment,” says Evelyn Douek, a professor at Stanford Law School who specializes in online speech issues. Everyone that matters is going to listen to the Supreme Court justices’ opinions over mine. It’s hard to take the national security justification seriously, though, when in recent days presidents past and future as well as members of Congress seem to be backpedaling on whether an immediate shutdown is necessary after all.”
With days to go before the deadline, President Biden indicated he would leave enforcement of the law to the incoming Trump administration. TikTok urged the Biden administration Saturday to provide assurance that it wouldn’t enforce the law after the move left the app in limbo. Biden’s team asked TikTok to raise its concerns with Trump.
On Blind, TikTok employees were worried about if they would have jobs next month, while others kept their jobs. “Anyone else’s manager still scheduling meetings next week about new, upcoming projects without acknowledging the ban whatsoever?” wrote one user. Another user asked if he had 2025 strategy meetings next week. “I am just doing what I’m told. It is comforting in a way.
How Can ByteDance Apps Be Gone Too? The Case of Cap Cut: An Amateur Video Editor for TikTok
PAFACA does not require ByteDance to block US-based users of its apps. It forbids the US company from giving any service totribute, maintain or update any ByteDance-owned apps. Many of these apps are no longer available in the app stores as a result of this. That may change soon after Donald Trump takes office on Monday, however, with the US president-elect indicating that he plans to extend the deadline for a sale of TikTok by 90 days. Yes, it is all very confusing.
CapCut is a free video-editing tool, optimized for vertical videos that can be posted on TikTok. It is a professional app and can often be used by amateur creators. Cap Cut is used by some creators to first produce and then post their videos on other platforms.
Lemon8 was a photo-based social media app. It is known for resembling RedNote, a particularly successful social media app in China that has also become the destination for many TikTok users in exile this week. The app went offline when some TikTok users chose to migrate to Lemon8.
With Gauth, students can take pictures of their homework, and the app will use artificial intelligence to understand the problem and provide step-by-step solutions. It also has other features that help students be more productive while studying. The app has helped 300 million users with billions of questions, according to the announcement this weekend.
Amenable Subscriptions to ByteDance-Owne Apps in the US and Impact on Online Shoppers’ Choice in Indonesia
January 19, 2025, updated at 9 am. Added the games Marvel Snap, Land of Empires, and Mission EVO to the list of apps unavailable in the US as a result of the ban on ByteDance-owned properties.
The photo-editing tool Hypic was launched in 2022, has a heavy focus on generative artificial intelligence. Users can use it to improve their photo or transform a photo into a cartoon.
Lark is a Slack-like workspace communications app. Originally created for ByteDance’s own internal messages among employees, it has now become one of the most-used office communications apps in China, with several million active users.
Poligon, a Singapore-based subsidiary of ByteDance, publishes several apps that allow users to watch short vertical dramas (Melolo) or read online fiction novels (Fizzo and MyTopia Books). Only MyTopia Books is still available on Apple’s US App Store despite end of support for US users.
One of the largest online shopping platforms in Indonesia can be found at tokopedia. The Indonesian government banned the TikTok Shop app in order to protect smaller merchants and users’ data, after Byte Dance acquired it.
