TikTok has gone—can you get it back
TikTok has gone dark — as the platform said would happen if the ban came into force on Sunday. 170 million users were shut out even before the midnight deadline, and while TikTok has said it is hopeful the new Trump administration will bring it back once in office, there are no guarantees or confirmations as yet.
So, will a VPN help you beat the ban? That was the speculation as the ban approached (1,2), with articles advising the best VPN to use and the dangers in choosing unwisely, as has been warned for some time, you need to avoid free VPNs.
In any case, a VPN won’t help you skip the U.S. TikTok ban. They don’t work that way. A VPN lets you pretend to be somewhere you’re not. So, if internet traffic from the U.S. to TikTok was blocked, that would help. And that would work both in beating local censorship and tricking TikTok into thinking you’re not in the U.S.
But for that to work, you would need to be logging into a TikTok platform outside the U.S. That’s the same as someone in Iran or North Korea or China accessing a U.S. or European news site or social media or messaging platform. But in the U.S., TikTok itself has gone dark. The platform is down. There’s nothing for you to connect to.
If you try to use a VPN as a U.S. user with an app you installed in the U.S. and an account it knows is from the U.S., you’re linked to its now dark U.S. ecosystem, If you use the website, you could bypass the ban but you’d need a new account and not one registered in the U.S. to a U.S. phone number.
As I’ve warned for some time, VPNs are not the answer for this ban and users banking on them will be disappointed today. Ironically, if you’re outside the U.S. with a non-U.S. account but set a VPN to pretend you’re in the U.S., you are blocked.
This could change of course — it’s a TikTok operational matter and they have determined how to adhere to the ban and change their platform. But for now the best you can do is cross your fingers and wait for news later today or next week.
In the meantime, do not click links or install apps that promise to workaround the ban — they will be dangerous scams and cannot help you.