Sunday, January 19

TikTok has officially gone dark in the United States after being banned by the government, but it could in the coming days.

TikTok, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, is one of the most popular social media apps in the world. The platform has over 1 billion monthly users, around 1/8 of the global population, 170 million of which are in the United States.

Earlier this year, the US Congress passed a law giving ByteDance nine months to sell TikTok before it was banned across the countries, which would have a major effect on the lives of Americans. The average adult in the US spends almost an hour a day on TikTok, and over half of the country's population uses it. From an economical perspective, the app provides a massive benefit to the US: 7 million small businesses use TikTok for advertising, and the app supports over 224,000 jobs in the country.

While TikTok appealed the ban, that appeal was taken down by the Supreme Court, who supported the ban unanimously. Due to this, last night, the ban took effect, with TikTok disappearing from Apple's App Store and Google's Play Store, and users of the app encountered this error when entering the app: "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."

However, that may change in the days to come. Donald Trump will be sworn in as the 47th President of the United States tomorrow, allowing him to take office and begin working on his massive agenda. One of the items that he is expected to take action on after his inauguration will be this topic, where TikTok will need help from the president if it is to continue being available to the American public.

The primary thing Trump is considering is granting a 90-day extension to TikTok, which would give them three more months to stay active in the American market as they work out their issues with the US government. Part of the ban stated that the president can delay the ban by up to 90 days, but on one condition: they need confirmation that talks about the purchase of TikTok by an American company are moving forward.

ByteDance has strongly rejected any sort of buyer, though, which could prevent Trump from granting the 90-day extension either way. If Trump did grant the extension, it would most likely take place on his inauguration day on Monday, allowing TikTok to come back online within two days of its original shutdown.

Fact of the Day (Reader's Digest): A cool thing called “total internal reflection” happens when you point a laser beam at a jet of flowing water. You begin with a laser positioned on one side of a clear tank of water. When the light travels through the water, it is slowed by the heavier particles in the water, effectively “trapping” the laser beam in the water. Even as the water flow is gradually decreased, the laser beam remains contained inside the jet, until it eventually disappears when the water is turned off completely.

Quote of the Day (Gracious Quotes): He who knows no dance, claims the stage is tilted. (Hindi Proverb)

Word of the Day (Merriam-Webster): Minuscule (adj, MIN-uh-skyool) - Something described as minuscule is very small. Minuscule can also mean "written in, or in the size or style of, lowercase letters," in which case it can be contrasted with majuscular.

In a Sentence: The number of bugs in the latest version of the video game is minuscule compared to the number that surfaced in the beta version.