CNN
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With no way for users to download Tiktok, thousands of eBay sellers listed phones with the app installed – hoping to capitalize on Tiktok’s disappearance from US app stores after a brief ban.
Tiktok was removed from mobile app stores and briefly went dark on Saturday, the evening before the deadline for a Federal law banning TikTok in the United States Unless it’s sold to a US-based company or one of its allies. The app was back for existing users about 12 hours later, after President Donald Trump said he sign An executive order delaying the ban – but it remains missing from app stores. So, those who deleted or never had Tiktok installed still cannot download the app.
With the calendar for the Tiktok App Store, returns, Some enterprising people are taking advantage: Thousands of eBay listings have popped up advertising phones with TikTok installed, as Wired reported.
Many listings are priced in the hundreds to thousands of dollars, although some optimistic sellers are asking a million or more. Some of these listings are marked sold, like this one for $21,000 – but the phone is unlikely to sell anywhere near that price, as sellers may accept offers below the listing.
As of midday Thursday, searches for “Tiktok Phone” yielded more than 27,000 results on eBay.
Tiktok, eBay, Apple and Google did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.
Tiktok’s disappearance from app stores wasn’t a shock, as experts predicted it would happen as soon as the ban happened. But what happens next is unclear.
The law banning TikTok only requires that its technology partners no longer make the app available, attracting fines of up to $5,000 per person who has access to the platform. This includes Oracle, which hosts TikTok content in the United States, and Apple and Google, which host the app in their app stores.
Meanwhile, the overall future of Tiktok in the United States is just as murky. The executive order, signed Monday evening, delays enforcement of the TikTok ban for 75 days, but it does not provide a permanent solution.
For Tiktok to continue to be available in the United States, ByTedance must either sell to an American buyer or the Trump administration will have to pass a new law to overturn the previous one. The latter is an unlikely scenario given that broad bipartisan support supports the current legislation received in Congress.
While Bytedance initially expressed no intention of selling TikTok, it is now in active discussions about a deal, a board member told Axios.