Apple tonight updated its beta testing app TestFlight, seemingly to block U.S. users from accessing the TikTok beta on the iPhone and other devices.

Apple and Google removed TikTok from their app stores Saturday, complying with a law requiring China's ByteDance to divest the social app or see it face an effective ban in the U.S.

Working around the ban — if you can — is not unlawful, as long as you don’t do anything wrong in how you actually do it. The issue for U.S. users will be that you won’t be able to do that with your existing account. You also can’t do that from the U.S. or possibly even with a cell phone carrying a U.S.-registered SIM or eSIM.

TikTok stopped services in the US late on Saturday hours before a federal law banning the app went into effect.

Experts have noted TikTok’s app should remain available for current users, but existing ones will no longer be able to update it, making it unusable in the long term.

After several attempts, finally came the moment when ByteDance's platform, TikTok disappears from the United States after a legal battle.

U.S. officials have long feared that the widely popular short-form video app could be used as a vehicle for espionage.

The app had more than 170 million monthly users in the U.S. The black-out is the result of a law forcing the service offline unless it sheds its ties to ByteDance, its China-based parent company.

On Saturday evening, January 18, the TikTok app was removed from Apple and Google app stores for users in the US. This occurred ahead of the enforcement of a new law banning the platform, informs the Associated Press.

The law passed by the Biden administration says it will be unlawful for “an entity,” “marketplace” like a mobile app store, or “internet hosting services to enable the distribution, maintenance, or updating” of TikTok and other ByteDance products.

Millions of TikTok users in the United States are no longer able to watch videos on the social media platform as a federal ban on the immensely popular app takes effect.