# TikTok goes dark in the US

> TikTok went dark in the US for around 14 hours in January 2025.

- Owner: TikTok / ByteDance
- Kind: Moment
- Sector: Media & publishing
- Seed date: 2025-01-18
- Milestone date: 2025-01-19
- Date basis: Documented milestone; not a measured attention peak.
- Spread Score: 39 (Niche), v1.3
- Mechanics: Platform jump, Controversy

## Summary

TikTok stopped working in the US. Users reacted on X and Instagram; Trump promised an order, and TikTok began restoring service the next day.

## Timeline

- 2025-01-17 — US Supreme Court (Open web) — The Supreme Court affirmed the ruling upholding the divest-or-ban law.
- 2025-01-18 — TikTok (Open web) — TikTok warned it would go dark without assurances for service providers.
- 2025-01-18 — TikTok (TikTok) — TikTok stopped working for US users around 10:30 p.m. Eastern time.

The full timeline, metrics and sources are on the case page, or via the Pro API (https://howitspread.com/mcp#api).

Canonical URL: https://howitspread.com/cases/tiktok-us-shutdown-2025

Cite as: How It Spread (2026). “TikTok goes dark in the US.” Case HIS-01770. Spread Score v1.3: 39/100. Updated 2026-10-28. https://howitspread.com/id/HIS-01770