In the evening hours of January 18, US users frantically checking TikTok for the last time before the US ban on the app took effect found that their access had already been revoked.
TikTok’s parent company pulled access to the popular video-sharing app less than two hours before it was expected to go dark. The app’s 170 million active US users now instead see an eyebrow-raising pop-up touting the possibility that President-elect Donald Trump will keep the app. Despite the surprising timing of TikTok’s shutdown, it followed months of legislative and legal battles leading up to the day the Protecting Americans from Applications Controlled by Foreign Adversaries Act was set to go into effect. What many hadn’t digested, however, was how the US law, which targets any “app controlled by a foreign adversary,” would lead to complaints of other popular apps as well.
ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company and the only company named in the bill, immediately removed its related apps and platforms. before the US law took effect – a glimpse of the true extent of the Chinese-owned company’s influence on US users’ digital diets. Other foreign-controlled applications, or those associated with companies considered foreign adversaries, are likely to follow.
Here are the top apps no longer available in the US due to the ban, as of January 19:
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TikTok Studio, TikTok Store Vendor
In addition to the main platform, ByteDance has removed secondary TikTok offerings for creators and companies, including TikTok Studio (a tool for creating and scheduling videos) and the TikTok Shop Seller Center (a management platform for businesses that sell on the TikTok Shop).
Marvel Snap
Marvel Snap, a popular card game fighter with millions of players in the US, was an unexpected victim of TikTok’s ban. While it was created by California-based developer Second Dinner, the game is published by ByteDance-owned Nuverse. Other games published by Nuverse such as Earth: Resurrection – Deep Underground AND Ragnarok X: 3rd Anniversary are still available for download for now eve reports. Nuverse did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
Mashable’s Speed of Light
The tweet may have been deleted
CapCut
A popular video editing app used by fancy camera creators and meme editors all over the internet (and on TikTok), CapCut has been pulled from the US app store. Many had expected and warned users that the app, owned by ByteDance, would be affected by the ban.
The tweet may have been deleted
Lemon 8
TikTok’s Lemon8, originally touted as a Pinterest-meets-Instagram hybrid social media alternative, was also taken down in the late hours of January 18. Since its launch in 2023, amid early controversy over the banning of its parent app, Lemon8 has grown in popularity among fitness and wellness creators.
hippie
Hypic is ByteDance’s free photo editing offering, heavily promoted on TikTok as an appearance-focused Photoshop tool. It also allowed TikTok users to apply AI face filters to their videos.
The tweet may have been deleted
Lark, Lark Team Collaboration, Lark Rooms Display, Lark Rooms Controller
ByteDance-owned Lark is a productivity suite for businesses designed as a competitor to Google Workspace. The kit, including the secondary controller and presentation applications, was withdrawn from the US markets.
Gauth
Gauth, originally known as GauthMath, is an AI-powered study app created by ByteDance and one of the most popular education apps in the Apple App Store. The app reached 200 million users worldwide in 2024.
Other applications
Popular apps in international markets were also pulled after the ByteDance hit. These include Melolo, a short-form video app run by Poligon and popular in Southeast Asia; Fizzo, Poligon’s e-book platform; and Tokopedia, a popular e-commerce site in Indonesia. Poligon is a subsidiary of Singapore-based ByteDance.
Notably, RedNote (Xiaohongshu) is still available for download from the US app store, despite being a Chinese-owned platform subject to China’s data privacy and censorship laws. In the wake of TikTok’s ban, many users have flocked to the video-forwarding platform as a possible alternative.
