It’s not just TikTok: These other ByteDance apps have gone after the Ban

TikTok is not long available in the United States– at least for now. But it is not the only ByteDance app that is currently available blocked for US based users.

Shortly before the expiration of the January 19 federal mandate, TikTok cut off access to anyone trying to access the app from the United States. “A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the United States. Unfortunately, this means you can’t use the TikTok app for now,” reads a lock screen confronting US users when they try to load the app. app. “We are fortunate that President. Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to restore TikTok once he takes office, please stay tuned!

Similar notifications appear on other apps from ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, which is based in China and is at the heart of the controversy over a popular video app that, at least as of Saturday, had 170 million users in the United States. Video editing app CapCut, photo and video sharing app Lemon8, and others are now dark in the US.

A federal law past last year ban ByteDance’s apps from operating in the United States for national security reasons. In response to Chinese laws requiring companies based in China to provide their data to the Chinese government and intelligence agencies, the Protecting Americans from the Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act (PAFACA) has asked ByteDance to sell TikTok and its other apps to an entity not based in China as of Sunday.

This sale did not happen. As a result, TikTok began blocking US-based users on Saturday, January 18, before the midnight deadline. Because PAFACA bans all apps operated by ByteDance, not just TikTok, users of its myriad other apps face the same restrictions.

PAFACA does not require ByteDance to block US-based users of its apps. Instead, it prohibits any US company from providing any service to “distribute, maintain or update” ByteDance’s apps. As a result, many of these apps are no longer available in the Apple and Google App Stores. That may change soon after Donald Trump took office on Monday, however, with the US president-elect indicating that he plans to extend the deadline for selling TikTok by 90 days. Yes, it’s all very confusing.

For now, here is the list of all the apps that US users can no longer access due to the US ban on ByteDance apps.

TikTok, TikTok Studio, TikTok Shop Seller, TikTok Lite

Not only TikTok, but other ByteDance apps that work for the TikTok ecosystem have also become unavailable along with the main app. These include TikTok Studio (for creators to manage content and check analytics), TikTok Shop Seller (for ecommerce sellers on the app to manage their business operations), and TikTok Lite (a smaller version and faster than the original app which is only available in some cases). countries).

CapCut

CapCut is a free video editing tool, optimized for vertical videos that can be published on TikTok. It is often the app of choice for amateur creators because of its professional features. Some creators also use CapCut to pre-produce videos before uploading them to platforms other than TikTok.

Lemon 8

ByteDance released Lemon8 in February 2023 as a photo-based social media app. It is known to resemble RedNote, a particularly successful social media app in China which has also become the destination for many TikTok users in exile this week. Some TikTok users also chose to migrate to Lemon8, but the app also went offline.

Gauth

With Gauth, students can take pictures of their work, and the app will use artificial intelligence to understand the problem and provide step-by-step solutions. It also has other features that help students be more productive while studying. According to the app arrest notice this weekend, it “helped 300 million users with billions of questions.”

Hypic

Hypic, launched in 2022, is a photo editing tool with a strong focus on generative AI tools. It uses AI to help users improve photo quality or turn a photo into a cartoon.

Aldola

Lark is a workspace communication app similar to Slack. Originally created for internal ByteDance messages between employees, it has now become one of the most used office communication applications in China, with several million active users.

Melolo, Fizzo, MyTopia Books

Poligon, a subsidiary of Singapore-based ByteDance, publishes several apps that offer users to watch short vertical dramas (Melolo) or read fiction novels online (Fizzo and MyTopia Books). MyTopia Books is the only one of those apps that hasn’t ended support for US-based users, and somehow remains available on the US Apple App Store.

Tokopedia

Tokopedia is one of the largest ecommerce platforms in Indonesia. It was acquired by ByteDance in December 2023 merged with the operation of TikTok Shop in the country after the Indonesian government banned the latter app, citing “the need to protect smaller merchants and user data.”

It has become unavailable on Apple’s US App Store, but remains available on Google’s US Play Store as of publication.