From an article at NPR about what might happen to TikTok when the law goes into effect:
It’s also possible that users will be able to access the app but it may be buggy, operate slowly or crash often, the TikTok official said.
Buggy and crash? I guess it’s possible that if some backend services were shut down it could cause problems for the app. Sounds more like made up nonsense, though, as TikTok scrambles to figure out what to do because they only had literal years notice this might happen.
@manton the web app is OK, but not great. Mostly because it nags you at every click or swipe to install the native app. Otherwise, the UI is pretty complete and the video playback is pretty smooth, at least on my pixel 8.
@manton I dunno. I have seen enough movies to know when things go wrong and it all goes glitchy and there are a bunch of bleeps and bloops and klaxons.
@nickheer Bleep bleep bloop! I’d actually love to see the TikTok app crash and become buggy because of this law. 🙂
@evan I assume the web version will be slower to kill. Apple and Google can stop app downloads right away. Should be interesting!
@manton I think the primary mechanics for the ban were around the app stores, with some secondary bans on US companies providing services. I don't know if there's a domain-based ban or not.
@evan The text of the bill does also say “internet hosting services”, but the wording is a little unclear for whether it only applies to app services or anything on the web. Hosting TikTok must be a huge business, no one is going to proactively cut it off.
