Despondent American TikTokers searching high and low for a fix after the beloved social app went dark are having a troublesome time getting across the ban.
Users on Sunday were just starting to understand that the Chinese-owned app stays dark even when using a VPN.
Virtual private networks can trick web sites and apps into pondering a user is in a unique country. VPN software is often utilized in countries where an oppressive government restricts access to social media — like Iran, China or Russia.
But TikTok ensured its shutdown couldn’t be so easily evaded.
“Whoever said a vpn would work after the tiktok ban, you’re goin straight to hell,” one frustrated user wrote.
One other added: “went through the strategy of establishing a vpn to access tiktok and it still don’t work.”
TikTok selected to shut down at midnight Sunday, reasonably than sell its US business and comply with the mandate of a law passed by Congress in April.
Anyone attempting to access the app shouldn’t be confronted with a message saying it’s working with President-elect Trump to search out an answer.
Trump, who takes office Monday, floated a pause within the ban until he could negotiate a 50% US takeover of ownership of the app.
Members of Congress who backed the ban said TikTok can’t return to the US until it’s now not in Chinese hands.
TikTok’s US shutdown seemingly prohibits any accounts created in america, even when users activate a VPN.
The Post also confirmed that attempting to access the positioning with a VPN from contained in the US doesn’t work — even without an account.
After the app went dark early Saturday for 170 million Americans, agitated app users vented their frustrations on X and Instagram — with many looking for quick fixes or hacks to bypass the federal law that banned the app after it failed to search out a latest owner that isn’t Chinese.
“PSA: VPNs don’t work in case your TikTok account was created within the USA. You could have to make an entire latest account “in” one other country,” one person wrote on X.
“Just placed on a VPN for Canada and TikTok still didn’t work,” one other crushed TikTok user wrote on X.
There appears to be some workarounds. Some users claimed that using a VPN on a pc allowed access to the app — but provided that the account was created outside the US.
TikTok’s total shutdown is analogous to its tactic within the Chinese enclave of Hong Kong. It announced it was pulling out within the wake of draconian national security laws there — in an try to assuage concerns about Chinese government control.
TikTok was already banned in mainland China — Chinese residents as an alternative use Douyin, a TikTok app with Chinese characteristics.
Easy VPNs also cannot penetrate the app’s ban there.
Each apps are owned by Beijing-based ByteDance.
The app’s shutdown was widely anticipated after the Supreme Court on Friday unanimously upheld Congress’s law that required the platform’s Chinese-owned parent company to divest its stake in the corporate by Jan. 19 or face a national ban.
