Fingerprint and face unlock are an expected, and crucial part of our modern devices, but after spending some time with the OnePlus 13, I’m reminded of a couple of annoying quirks that OnePlus still needs to address.
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TikTok’s US shutdown last night appears to be affecting users outside the country as well. People have taken to social media in the hours since, complaining they can’t access the app despite living in non-US countries, and it’s not always clear why.
In some cases, the problem appears to be using a VPN that routes traffic through the US. One user on Reddit says they’re based in the UK, saw the message that’s supposed to be displayed only in the US overnight, and found that a quick location change in their VPN app fixed it:
I got that message myself in the UK I immediately thought to check my Vpn, yep it was going through Miami once I changed that TikTok is fine.
This doesn’t work in all cases, though. The original creator of that thread also claims to live in the UK, but they say they weren’t using a VPN. Instead, they suspect the problem is that they were living in the US when they created their main account. Other people who signed up in the US also report they can’t access the app, despite now living in countries like Canada, Germany, Australia, Greece, and Poland.
@tiktok_uk @TikTokSupport I cannot access the app due to the US ban. I was born and live in England, please may you allow me access. My username is @kittyyy.mx on TikTok. #tiktok #tiktokban #tiktoksupport #tiktokuk pic.twitter.com/p9prz6fZE8
— kitty (@kittyxib) January 19, 2025
But some users, who name their location as the UK, Canada, and Australia, say they didn’t create their account in the US — and in some cases that they’ve never been there at all. Still others complain that the app is blocked for them in countries like Morocco or Ireland. One user, who says they are Mozambican, speculates it’s because they got around their country’s monetization laws by setting their account region to the US.
TikTok did not immediately reply to our request for comment on what could be causing people living outside the US to lose access.
TikTok went dark for users in the US on Saturday night, but it may not be gone for long. President-elect Donald Trump posted on Truth Social Sunday morning that he will issue an executive order Monday that will “extend the period of time before the law’s prohibitions take effect, so that we can make a […]
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As if losing your job when the startup you work for collapses isn’t bad enough, now a security researcher has found that employees at failed startups are at particular risk of having their data stolen. This ranges from their private Slack messages to Social Security numbers and, potentially, bank accounts. The researcher who discovered the […]
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President-elect Donald Trump says he wants service providers like Apple and Google to put TikTok back online in the US, and proposed creating a joint venture where the US owns 50 percent of the app.
“I’m asking companies not to let TikTok stay dark!” Trump wrote on Truth Social Sunday. “I will issue an executive order on Monday to extend the period of time before the law’s prohibitions take effect, so that we can make a deal to protect our national security. The order will also confirm that there will be no liability for any company that helped keep TikTok from going dark before my order.”
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Screenshot: Truth Social
Part of the motivation appears to be his own inauguration on Monday, which Trump says “Americans deserve to see.” He called the joint venture idea an “initial thought” and says “By doing this, we save TikTok, keep it in good hands and allow it to say up. Without U.S. approval, there is no Tik Tok. With our approval, it is worth hundreds of billions of dollars - maybe trillions.”
Shortly after the ban took effect, Republican lawmakers poured cold water on the idea that Donald Trump will be able to halt the TikTok ban without a sale of the app when he resumes the presidency Monday. Trump had previously floated exercising a 90-day extension written into the law to lengthen the deadline for a sale, and reportedly considered issuing an executive order.
“We will enforce the law,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday. “When President Trump issued the Truth post and said, ‘save TikTok,’ the way we read that is that he’s going to try to force along a true divestiture.” Johnson added that, “the only way to extend that is if there’s an actual deal in the works.”
“Now that the law has taken effect, there’s no legal basis for any kind of ‘extension’ of its effective date,” Sens. Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Pete Ricketts (R-NE) said in a statement. “For TikTok to come back online in the future, ByteDance must agree to a sale that satisfies the law’s qualified-divestiture requirements by severing all ties between TikTok and Communist China.”
With Trump’s Republican allies in Congress casting doubt on the idea that a pause on the ban is viable without a bona fide deal that rids TikTok of its foreign adversary ownership, it’s unlikely that service providers like Apple and Google will risk the billions in fines they could face should a court rule that Trump is wrong about his powers to halt the law.
But creating a joint venture where the US owns 50 percent of a speech platfom comes with its own potential First Amendment concerns. And Johnson’s comments on “Meet the Press” about why lawmakers are concerned about the app to begin with further demonstrate that Congress did think about the content on the platform when deciding to pass the law — even though the Supreme Court didn’t see that as reason to find it unconstitutional. “They have been flooding the minds of American children with terrible messages glorifying violence and antisemitism and even suicide and eating disorders,” Johnson says. “It’s a very dangerous thing. The Chinese Communist Party is not our friend, and we have to make sure this changes hands.”
It’s been unclear in the leadup to the TikTok ban what the fate of parent company ByteDance’s other apps would be, but now we know: they’ve gone dark in the US too. At the same time TikTok went offline this weekend, so did other apps ByteDance has developed or is affiliated with, including the popular video-editing tool CapCut, the social media platform Lemon8 and Marvel Snap. All are now displaying messages to US users that their services are unavailable. Ben Brode, Chief Development Officer for Marvel Snap developer Second Dinner, wrote on Threads that getting caught up in the ban “was a surprise to us” and that the team is working on getting it back online.
Second Dinner echoed this on X and in its in-app message to users, adding, “MARVEL SNAP isn’t going anywhere.” While Marvel Snap was created by the US-based developer, its publisher Nuverse Games is a ByteDance subsidiary. Other Nuverse games appear to be affected too.
CapCut and Lemon8 may be less surprising casualties, both having been developed by ByteDance, but given the law’s focus on TikTok alone as its target, their shutdown is still sure to come as a shock to many users. CapCut is widely used for video editing, especially among social media creators. And many TikTok users looking for an alternative in light of the ban flocked to Lemon8; just a few days ago, Lemon8 was the second most-popular app on the App Store.
On a new support page listing some of the affected apps, Apple notes, “If you already have these apps installed on your device, they will remain on your device. But they can’t be redownloaded if deleted or restored if you move to a new device. In-app purchases and new subscriptions are no longer possible.” These apps also won’t receive updates.
Along with TikTok, CapCut, Lemon8 and Marvel Snap, Apple names Lark, Hypic — an AI photo editing tool — and Gauth: AI Study Companion as apps that have been pulled as a result of the ban. But there are many others that aren’t listed that may be swept up in it too.
“Apple is obligated to follow the laws in the jurisdictions where it operates,” Apple said in a statement on the support page. “Pursuant to the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, apps developed by ByteDance Ltd. and its subsidiaries — including TikTok, CapCut, Lemon8, and others — will no longer be available for download or updates on the App Store for users in the United States starting January 19, 2025.”
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/marvel-snap-capcut-lemon8-and-other-bytedance-apps-have-also-shut-down-in-the-us-alongside-tiktok-153002137.html?src=rss©
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Top LLMs performed poorly on a high-level history test, a new paper has found.
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Tech leaders are set to have a big presence.
On January 20th, Donald Trump is set to be sworn in as the 47th president of the United States to serve his second term. Immediately after his victory, many tech leaders publicly congratulated Trump and started making moves to win his favor, including schmoozing with the incoming president at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida and making donations to his inauguration committee.
Tech leaders should have a visible presence at Trump’s inauguration, with Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook, Shou Zi Chew, Sundar Pichai, and Sam Altman all reported to be present. Musk is also scheduled to speak at a pre-inauguration rally, and Zuckerberg will reportedly host a black-tie event on Inauguration Day.
We’ll be covering the event and how tech leaders are a part of it.
C-SPAN will be hosting a livestream on YouTube. The livestream is scheduled to begin at 7AM ET, and the swearing-in ceremony is scheduled for 12PM ET. The inauguration will take place indoors at the United States Capitol Rotunda because of projected cold weather.
According to Mark Gurman’s Power On newsletter, supply of the current generation iPhone SE, which debuted in 2022, is quickly shrinking. This is unsurprising, given the fact that we’re all expecting a new iPhone SE to debut in just a couple months. However, it is uniquely interesting, as it indicates that Apple likely has no plans to keep the current generation model around.
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It really seems that there has been a shift in Android phones within the last couple of years. The underdogs are beginning to take a stand and develop devices that truly rival some of the top OEMs in the market. That sentiment rings true for the Honor Magic 7 Pro, a device I’ve come to know and appreciate over the last month.
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According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple’s new Mail app is going to make its way to the Mac very soon, with macOS 15.4. Apple introduced the new Mail app to the iPhone back in December with iOS 18.2, but it hasn’t made its way to any other platform since.
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