Mourners” attended a mock funeral for TikTok in New York City on January 17, as the social media platform announced it would possibly be “forced” to shut down on. Video recorded by Ava Kramer shows an inflatable doll dressed in TikTok merchandise inside a casket in Washington Square Park on Friday.

TikTok's temporary shutdown and restoration over the weekend spark outrage, with experts suggesting a PR stunt.

The law gives the president the option to extend the ban by 90 days, but triggering the extension requires evidence that parties working on purchasing have made significant progress, including binding legal agreements for such a deal — and TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, hasn’t publicly updated its stance that the app is not for sale.

The app’s availability in the U.S. has been thrown into jeopardy over data privacy and national security concerns.

Like tens of thousands of content creators who make their living through social media, local creators are in jeopardy of losing their most successful platform if the U.S. government follows through on its ban of the app.

The controversy over TikTok in US politics reflects a broader trend — the growing entanglement of technology and politics, as was evidenced by the overwhelming attendance of tech giants at Trump’s inauguration.

On Saturday night, for the first time in five years, millions of American TikTok users who logged on for a late-night scroll were met with an unwelcome notice that their beloved app had been banned and shut down.

"I love TikTok so much that I cannot imagine a life without it. And yet I desperately need a life without it."

NYC influencers and social media users welcomed TikTok back into their lives on Sunday after the popular, yet controversial, platform briefly shut down. TikTok began restoring services on Jan. 19 following President-elect Donald Trump‘s announcement that he would lift the ban after he takes office Monday — with one condition.

While TikTok has been restored for millions of American users after going dark, the app still isn't available on Apple's App Store or Google Play.