Tech
TikTok shuts down in the United States hours ahead of a ban

Published
2 months agoon
By
Ekwutos Blog
TikTok went offline in the United States Saturday night, less than two hours before a ban was slated to go into effect. The extraordinary blackout prevents access to one of the world’s most popular social media apps – one that had been used by 170 million Americans.
Visitors to the app were met with a message reading: “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.”
TikTok’s action comes after the Supreme Court on Friday upheld a ban that was passed with broad bipartisan support in Congress and signed into law in April by President Joe Biden. The law prevents American companies from hosting or serving content for the Chinese-owned social media platform unless it sells itself to a buyer from the United States or one of its allies.
But TikTok may not be gone for long. The company suggested it could be back soon – perhaps as early as Monday.
“We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office,” the company posted in its pop-up message to users who opened the app beginning late Saturday night. “Please stay tuned!”
President-elect Trump said he will “most likely” delay a ban on TikTok for 90 days after he takes office on Monday, adding that he has not made a final decision in a phone interview with NBC Newson Saturday.
“I think that would be, certainly, an option that we look at. The 90-day extension is something that will be most likely done, because it’s appropriate. You know, it’s appropriate. We have to look at it carefully. It’s a very big situation,” Trump said in the interview.
“If I decide to do that, I’ll probably announce it on Monday,” he added.
The blackout from TikTok — and the suggestion that it could soon restore its service — is the latest twist in a saga that’s dragged on for months, leaving the fate of the app in limbo.
The app also has disappeared from Apple’s App Store and the Google Play store. And other apps owned by TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance – including CapCut – also displayed a similar message Saturday night.
Lawmakers said TikTok’s ties to China and its access to reams of data posed a threat to national security.
Many US users told CNN they were bracing for an end to the app, including influencers and other small businesses that said they depended on the platform for a living. Still, they said, they held out hope the app would somehow be saved.
But the Supreme Court’s decision dashed hopes of a last-second judicial assist.
Some of the companies that operate app stores and run computer servers are said to be concerned that they will be held liable for violating terms of the ban. Those service providers pledged to stop carrying the app to avoid legal consequences, a person familiar with companies’ discussions told CNN.
Meanwhile, Trump — who first warned of TikTok’s dangers five years ago — is now casting himself as the app’s savior. Earlier this month, on his Truth Social account, he posted stats about his own popularity on TikTok and asked, “Why would I want to get rid of TikTok?”
TikTok’s CEO Shou Chew has met with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago home in the weeks leading up to the ban taking effect and is expected to attend Trump’s inauguration on Monday.
TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment late on Saturday.
A 90-day extension?
The law passed last year allows the president to delay the ban from going into effect by 90 days but requires evidence that parties working to arrange a sale of TikTok to a US-owned company have made significant progress.
But TikTok’s owner, ByteDance, has rejected would-be buyers. The company has cited its popularity among American users, and its value to small businesses across the country, as it fights to stay online without any change in ownership.
After the Supreme Court ruled, 9-0, to uphold the ban, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre signaled the administration wouldn’t enforce the law on Biden’s final day in office.
Due to the federal holiday weekend and the inauguration, “actions to implement the law simply must fall to the next administration,” she said.
But TikTok wasn’t satisfied by that statement. According to a person familiar with the matter, some service providers — companies like Google and Apple that would face exorbitant fines for allowing US access to TikTok once the ban takes effect — told TikTok they believed they were vulnerable under the law starting Sunday.
A person close to TikTok says “multiple critical service providers” indicated to TikTok that they would no longer carry the app or its data, which forced the app offline. The service providers cited fears that the ban might be enforced starting Sunday, despite the Biden administration’s signals to the contrary.
So TikTok took action to take the app down – at least for now.
The tmove, and the pop-up naming Trump, could put even more pressure on the president-elect to negotiate a solution in the days or weeks to come.
TikTok employees were also told by the company on Saturday that the situation was “disappointing” but that the company was working on a solution.
“We know this is disappointing for you not only as employees, but as users. However, we are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office. Please know our teams are working tirelessly to bring our app back to the U.S. as soon as possible,” read the message to employees.
A White House source reiterated to CNN that there will not be any fines by the Biden administration associated with keeping TikTok active on Sunday.
At the same time, however, some Biden officials are content with TikTok going dark for a day, since the law was passed with strong support from both parties.
The decision “is going to be made by the next president anyway,” Biden told reporters Friday.
TikTok’s final minute
On Saturday, the White House called TikTok’s warning about going dark a “stunt.”
“We see no reason for TikTok or other companies to take actions in the next few days before the Trump administration takes office on Monday,” Jean-Pierre said. “We have laid out our position clearly and straightforwardly: actions to implement this law will fall to the next administration. So TikTok and other companies should take up any concerns with them.”
A TikTok spokesperson had no immediate reaction to the statement from the White House.
The company said it expected service providers — like companies that operate servers full of videos — to restrict access to the app at 12:01 a.m. ET on Sunday.
On Apple and Google’s app stores, the most popular free apps for the past week have been TikTok-like apps, including two that are also owned by Chinese companies. One of them, photo-sharing app Lemon8, is owned by ByteDance, just like TikTok. But Lemon8 may have the same fate as TikTok in the future.
Given Trump’s public remarks about TikTok any blackout may not last long.
Trump is said to be considering issuing an executive order that could effectively pause the ban and provide some time to sort out a long-term solution.
But he will face pressure from multiple directions. Some Republican senators, like Josh Hawley of Missouri and Tom Cotton of Arkansas, remain strongly supportive of the ban.
“ByteDance and its Chinese Communist masters had nine months to sell TikTok before the Sunday deadline,” Cotton wrote on X. “The very fact that Communist China refuses to permit its sale reveals exactly what TikTok is: a communist spy app.”
Analyst Richard Greenfield of LightShed Partners, who has long followed the TikTok saga, anticipates that TikTok will ultimately stay online in the United States.
On Saturday, Perplexity AI, a San Francisco-based AI search-engine startup, confirmed to CNN that it submitted a bid to ByteDance to merge with TikTok.
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Tech
Children are turning to ChatGPT over their PARENTS for life advice

Published
6 minutes agoon
April 3, 2025By
Ekwutos Blog
Children are increasingly turning to online chatbots instead of their parents for answers to life’s biggest questions, the Children’s Commissioner has warned.
Dame Rachel de Souza will say in a speech today that the ‘apathy’ of many parents is causing a ‘crisis in childhood’ that is leading to many children feeling ‘disconnected’.
The Children’s Commissioner will say that artificial intelligence such as Chat GPT could end up filling knowledge gaps for children unless parents can show they will respond quicker than online chatbots.
Her comments come amid a national conversation about how the internet and social media are affecting children, which has been prompted by the hit Netflix drama Adolescence.
Today Dame Rachel will address the inaugural Festival Of Childhood alongside Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson, where she is expected to say that children just ‘want to be listened to’.

Dame Rachel de Souza, the Children’s Commissioner for England, has warned that the ‘apathy’ of many parents is causing a ‘crisis in childhood’ that is leading to many children feeling ‘disconnected’
She will warn that childhood must not be conflated with adulthood ‘because to do so abdicates us of our responsibility to making sure every child has all the things they should always have, and no child experiences the things they never should’.
Dame Rachel will say: ‘If we want children to experience the vivid technicolour of life, the joy of childhood, the innocence of youth, we have to prove that we will respond more quickly to them than Chat GPT.’
She will add: ‘Some of these foundations of childhood are cracking. A different version of childhood is playing out – one that we are struggling to be honest about. A crisis developing in childhood.
‘There is a risk of inaction, of apathy – and the antidote to this is listening. Connecting. That is why we must listen to children, to engage them on the decisions about their lives.’
The Children’s Commissioner has also carried out a new survey using her statutory powers to obtain responses from around 19,000 schools and colleges, representing almost 90 per cent of schools in England.

Dame Rachel de Souza has warned that children are increasingly turning to online chatbots instead of their parents for answers to life’s biggest questions (file photo)
The research has found that more than half – 55 per cent – of schools are worried about the online safety of their children.
The survey also found that 71 per cent of schools are concerned about children’s access to adolescent mental health services, while 46 per cent are worried about the impact of poverty on children.
Dame Rachel is also expected to set out her focus for the next 12 months, which will include looking at children’s trust in the police, harms cause by AI ‘deepfake’ technology, and the use of mobile phones in schools.
Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said she pledged, upon entering office, that this would be a ‘child-centred government’.
She added: ‘This is exactly what we are delivering: better life chances for every child, wherever they live and whatever their background, putting their best interests at the heart of everything we do.’
Tech
Elon Musk has sold social media site X to his own AI company xAI for $33 billion

Published
4 days agoon
March 30, 2025By
Ekwutos Blog
Billionaire Elon Musk announced on Friday that he has sold social media site X, formerly known as Twitter when he bought it over two years ago, to his own artificial intelligence (AI) company xAI in a $33 billion (€30.5 billion) all-stock deal.
Both companies are privately held, which means they are not required to disclose their finances to the public.
Musk, who is also head of astronautical company SpaceX and carmaker Tesla, said in a post on X that the move will “unlock immense potential by blending xAI’s advanced AI capability and expertise with X’s massive reach”.
“xAI and X’s futures are intertwined. Today, we officially take the step to combine the data, models, compute, distribution, and talent,” Musk posted.
“The combined company will deliver smarter, more meaningful experiences to billions of people while staying true to our core mission of seeking truth and advancing knowledge,” he added.
Musk said the deal values xAI at $80 billion (€74 billion) and X at $33 billion (€30.5 billion).
Ambitions for xAI
The South African-born tech mogul, who also serves as an advisor to President Donald Trump heading the unofficial DOGE department, bought the site then called Twitter for $44 billion (€40 billion) in 2022, gutted its staff, and changed its policies on hate speech, misinformation, and user verification and renamed it X.
He launched xAI a year later.
“Since its founding two years ago, xAI has rapidly become one of the leading AI labs in the world, building models and data centres at unprecedented speed and scale,” Musk wrote on X.
Musk announced in December that the AI start-up would be expanding its supercomputer ‘Colossus’ in a bid to take on rivals like OpenAI, increasing the number of graphics processing units (GPUs) in order to develop new AI models at faster rates.
It’s not clear if the move will change anything for X users – xAI already uses data from X user posts to train its AI models and paying X users have access to its AI chatbot, Grok.
Tech
The senate has called on the federal government to take urgent action to address the rising cost of data services in the country.

Published
5 days agoon
March 29, 2025By
Ekwutos Blog
During Wednesday’s plenary, lawmakers debated a motion sponsored by Asuquo Ekpeyong, senator representing Cross River south, highlighting the financial strain caused by recent hike in data tariffs.
Ekpeyong warned that the surge in data costs was a major setback for young Nigerians who depend on the internet for their livelihoods.
He argued that many young people use digital platforms for freelancing, e-commerce, content creation, and software development, making affordable internet access crucial to their economic survival.
“Telecommunication providers in Nigeria have recently increased the cost of data services by as much as 200%. A move that has placed significant financial strain on millions of Nigerians, especially young people who rely on the internet for their livelihood,” he said.
“Young Nigerians have embraced the digital economy, leveraging the internet for various income-generating activities including freelancing and remote work, direct marketing and social media management, e-commerce, content creation on various platforms, online training, software development, web design, mobile app creation, content creation of various platforms, online education, etc.
“The senate notes that young Nigerians have embraced the digital economy, leveraging the internet for their livelihood, leaving them heavily dependent on mobile telecommunications companies for internet access, and that the sudden and substantial increase in data cost threatens their economic survival and limits access to critical digital services.
“The senate is further concerned that the reasons provided by telecom providers for the data price hike, including high operational costs of favourable exchanges, are untenable, and appears that instead of addressing the root causes of the high cost of doing business in Nigeria, the burden is being unfairly transferred to end-users.
“Senate is aware that the high cost of doing business in Nigeria is driven by multiple challenges, such as increased operational risk and insurance costs.
“The senate believes that urgent government intervention is required to ensure that affordable internet access remains available to all Nigerians, particularly to the young Nigerians who are at the backbone of Nigeria’s digital economy.
“The senate accordingly resolves to urge the federal government to engage with telecommunication providers to review the recent increase in data costs and ensure the pricing remains fair and affordable for all Nigerians.”
The motion was seconded by Titus Zam, senator representing Benue north-west, and received the support of other lawmakers.
Victor Umeh, senator representing Anambra central, criticised not just the rising cost of data but also increases in telecom charges and Pay TV tariffs, accusing regulatory bodies of failing to protect Nigerians.
“If you buy airtime or data, within minutes, you are out of it. Nigerians are suffering so much, and we cannot turn a blind eye,” he said.
Sadiq Umar, senator representing Kwara North, warned that the price hike disproportionately affects young people, who form a significant part of Nigeria’s workforce.
“These service providers must make life easier for young Nigerians, not harder. The government needs to step in before this situation worsens,” he said.
Following the debate, Senate President Godswill Akpabio put the motion to a vote, and it was unanimously adopted.
Lawmakers urged the federal government to engage telecom providers to review and reduce the recent increase in data costs.
They also called on the ministry of communications, innovation, and digital economy to develop a policy framework for affordable internet access.
Lawmakers further recommended the creation of tech hubs across the country to provide free or subsidised internet for entrepreneurs, students, and innovators.
They also directed the senate committee on communications to investigate the factors driving high data costs and propose solutions to make the telecom sector more business-friendly.
Speaking after the motion was adopted, Akpabio praised Ekpeyong for raising the issue, saying the intervention would support young entrepreneurs and ensure fair pricing in the digital economy.
“This motion, when implemented, will assist our young entrepreneurs, not only to remain in business but also to ensure that they have affordable pricing that allows them to generate profits,” he said.

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