TikTok ban: Marvel Snap and 5 other apps also banned

TikTok’s parent company seized access to the popular video-sharing app less than two hours before it was scheduled to go dark. The app’s 170 million active users in the US are now instead seeing an eyebrow-raising pop-up that extols the possibility of President-elect Donald Trump saving the app. Despite the surprising timing of TikTok’s shutdown, it followed months of legislative and legal battles that continued until the day the “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act” was put into effect. What many didn’t digest, however, was how the US law, which targets any “apps controlled by a foreign adversary,” would also have led to other popular apps being ripped off.

ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok and the only company specified in the project, removed its apps and associated platforms at once before the US law goes into effect – a glimpse of the true scope of the Chinese company’s influence in the digital diet of US users. Other foreign-controlled apps, or those affiliated with companies considered foreign adversaries, could surely follow.

Here are the major apps that are no longer available in the US due to the ban, as of January 19:

TikTok Studio, TikTok Shop Seller

In addition to the main platform, ByteDance has removed its secondary TikTok offerings for creators and businesses, including TikTok Studio (a video creation and scheduling tool) and TikTok Shop Seller Center (a management platform for businesses which sells in TikTok Shop).

Marvel Snap

Marvel Snap, a popular card game battler with millions of players in the United States, was a unexpected victim of the TikTok ban. While it was created by California-based developer Second Dinner, the game is published by ByteDance’s Nuverse. Other games published by Nuverse, such as Earth: Revival – Deep Underground and Ragnarok X: 3rd Anniversary are still available for download for now, the virgin reports. Nuverse did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

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CapCut

A popular video editing app used by fancam creators and internet meme editors (and on TikTok), CapCut has been pulled from the US app store. Many had expected and warned users that the app, including ByteDance, would be affected by the ban.

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Lemon 8

TikTok’s Lemon 8originally promoted as a hybrid Pinterest-meets-Instagram social media alternative, it was also removed in the late hours of January 18th. Since its launch in 2023, amid the initial debate of banning its parent app, Lemon8 had grown in popularity among fitness and fitness enthusiasts. creators of well-being.

Hypic

Hypic is ByteDance’s free photo editing offering, heavily promoted on TikTok as an appearance-focused photoshopping tool. It also allows TikTok users to apply AI-powered facial filters to their videos.

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Lark, Lark Team Collaboration, Lark Rooms Display, Lark Rooms Controller

ByteDance’s Lark is a business productivity suite created as a competitor to Google Workspace. The suite, including secondary control and presentation applications, has been removed from US markets.

Gauth

Gauth, originally known as GauthMath, is an AI-powered study app created by ByteDance and one of the the most popular educational applications on the Apple App Store. The app reached 200 million users worldwide in 2024.

Other apps

Apps popular in international markets were also pulled in the wake of ByteDance’s crackdown. These include Melolo, a short-form video app run by Poligon and popular in Southeast Asia; Fizzo, Poligon’s e-book platform; and Tokopedia, a popular e-commerce site in Indonesia. Poligon is a subsidiary of Singapore-based ByteDance.

In particular, RedNote (Xiaohongshu) is still available for download from the US app store, despite being a Chinese-owned platform subject to China data privacy and censorship laws. Before the ban on TikTok, many users came to the video-forward platform as a potential alternative.