The TikTok shutdown is locking out non-US users, too

Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge, Getty Images

TikTok’s US shutdown last night appears to be affecting users outside the country as well. People have taken to social media in the hours since, complaining they can’t access the app despite living in non-US countries, and it’s not always clear why.

In some cases, the problem appears to be using a VPN that routes traffic through the US. One user on Reddit says they’re based in the UK, saw the message that’s supposed to be displayed only in the US overnight, and found that a quick location change in their VPN app fixed it:

I got that message myself in the UK I immediately thought to check my Vpn, yep it was going through Miami once I changed that TikTok is fine.

This doesn’t work in all cases, though. The original creator of that thread also claims to live in the UK, but they say they weren’t using a VPN. Instead, they suspect the problem is that they were living in the US when they created their main account. Other people who signed up in the US also report they can’t access the app, despite now living in countries like Canada, Germany, Australia, Greece, and Poland.

But some users, who name their location as the UK, Canada, and Australia, say they didn’t create their account in the US — and in some cases that they’ve never been there at all. Still others complain that the app is blocked for them in countries like Morocco or Ireland. One user, who says they are Mozambican, speculates it’s because they got around their country’s monetization laws by setting their account region to the US.

TikTok did not immediately reply to our request for comment on what could be causing people living outside the US to lose access.