“Even VPNs in India don’t lead to bypassing,” Gossin told WIRED.
In the early hours of the U.S. ban, it was not clear exactly how feasible it was to circumvent the restrictions for U.S. accounts. TikTok appeared to take a more extreme approach, blacking out all US builds of the app—blacking out versions of the TikTok app software that were made for US users to download and use. It also appeared that accounts associated with the US were blocked regardless of IP address or SIM country information.
Running a VPN alone was certainly not enough to bypass the ban and return to TikTok. But using a non-US TikTok account after removing the SIM (or on a device without a US SIM/US phone number) apparently works when combined with a VPN. Similarly, using a VPN with a desktop browser or Tor browser was enough to get a non-US TikTok account to load in the US early Sunday morning, although the desktop version of TikTok has always been much more limited than its mobile app.
“TikTok checks the source IP of network packets—if the source IP is from India, it drops the packets,” Gosain explains about the restrictions in India. Also, the TikTok app fetches the country information embedded in the SIM card and filters the network connection if the country code is ‘IN’. When we remove SIM card, TikTok app can’t detect Indian users from SIM card and when we use VPN, IP address changes and no longer belongs to Indian IP range. Therefore, TikTok again does not recognize that the user is accessing it from India. This is how we get past the filtering.”
Virtual Private Networks, or VPNs, work by passing your Internet traffic through servers that are physically located in locations around the world, so you can choose an IP address that is associated with a different location than where you are physically located. . For example, US TikTok users can use a VPN to make it look like they are accessing the internet from outside the US. VPNs also prevent your Internet Service Provider (ISP) from seeing your browsing data, adding a potential extra layer of privacy. When you use a VPN, your ISP simply sees the connections to the VPN instead of having access to a detailed list of all the websites you visit.
As a result of these capabilities, VPNs are often used in an attempt to bypass digital geolocation restrictions, such as those on Netflix or other streaming platforms. They are also an important and familiar tool for circumventing Internet censorship programs for people living under authoritarian regimes such as those of Russia, China, and Iran.
However, using a VPN comes with some caveats. Some commercial VPNs log people’s browsing history, which essentially just shifts data collection from ISPs to VPN manufacturers. This means that data is no longer protected, and law enforcement can request it from a VPN provider in the same way they request it from ISPs. As a result, choosing a free VPN is generally not a good idea – some even sell access to your home internet connection. But some VPNs publish no-logging policies and offer third-party audits and other transparency features in an effort to demonstrate compliance.
At the moment, TikTok’s efforts to block US users seem to be very difficult, and even a non-US SIM or SIM-free plus VPN may not be a viable route back into the app with a US TikTok account. However, the restrictions may be temporary. In practice, there appears to be little appetite for a permanent ban in the United States. And despite creating the idea, President Trump has said in recent days that he doesn’t want the program banned.
“My decision on TikTok will be made in the not-too-distant future, but I need to have time to consider the situation,” Trump said in a Truth Social post on Friday. “Wait!”
