Despite a huge increase in VPN usage across America following the news of the TikTok ban, it appears that even the best VPN services are not a secure solution for millions of Americans trying to access the popular social media platform.
The message “Sorry, TikTok is not available right now” is likely to remain in the minds of the 170 million affected Americans for a while yet. The Chinese video-sharing service enforced the block in the early hours of Sunday, January 19, 2025, not long after the ban or sale of TikTok law expired. Many had expected that the TikTok block would be bypassed using a virtual private network, but this turned out not to be the case.
While TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, began restoring service on Sunday, questions remain. Why didn’t the best VPNs do the trick? What’s more, what could be a solution for Americans if this were to happen again?
VPNs and TikTok bans
A virtual private network (VPN) is security software that encrypts all your internet connections and masks your real IP address. The latter is a unique series of numbers that identifies your device on the Internet, including your location.
Connecting to a VPN server located outside the country you are in is generally an easy way to bypass online geo-restrictions. It tricks your Internet Service Provider (ISP) into thinking you’re browsing from a completely different location.
This is why Americans downloaded VPNs by the dozen over the weekend of the TikTok ban. Proton VPN reported a 490% increase in US signups during that time. NordVPN also saw about eight times more new users than during a typical weekend, a company spokesperson told TechRadar.
Research by Top10VPN recorded an overall 827% increase in VPN demand from the early hours of Sunday morning (local time). Experts at vpnMentor (see graph below) then recorded an increase in demand from January 18, the day before the US TikTok ban. “The surge in demand hit its peak with a massive 1566% increase within minutes of the app’s shutdown in the country,” experts noted.
Spikes in VPN usage are very common after widespread social media bans.
In 2024 alone, Proton VPN registered 19 VPN spikes in 13 countries worldwide. Less than a month into 2025 and we’ve already seen VPN sign-ups skyrocket in Venezuela as authorities blocked TikTok, Telegram and other online resources.
So why wasn’t a VPN enough to bypass the US TikTok ban?
How the US TikTok ban was different
While it’s unclear how the US TikTok ban has been implemented, it appears to be more of the usual IP-based blocking. Many American TikTok users have complained that they were unable to access TikTok even when using a VPN provider.
“While I’m just speculating, it looks like they flagged accounts as being from the US based on SIM card information and literally shut them down,” Simon Migliano, head of research at Top10VPN, told TechRadar.
Migliano explained that this meant that whether you accessed TikTok from outside the US, if your phone had a US SIM card, or if you had any US geolocation data associated with your account, you were unable to access your account. This could also be the reason why people could better access TikTok on a desktop rather than via mobile.
ok so vpn ONLY works IF you are on the tiktok website not the app and also you can’t be logged into a US account lol pic.twitter.com/3oscHut46e19 January 2025
According to David Peterson, General Manager of Proton VPN, the difference with similar bans on social media is who is doing the blocking in the first place.
He said: “If blocks are implemented by the apps themselves, they have more visibility over user accounts and can make decisions to block certain customers based on information that goes beyond a simple IP address.”
After all, Internet watchdog NetBlocks detected no indication of widespread network-level restrictions imposed by US ISPs, indicating that the block was solely because TikTok disabled its own service in the US.
For example, when Venezuela blocked TikTok, the government actively blocked the TikTok domain across the country instead. VPNs therefore had no problem getting users around the ban.
How to access TikTok in the US
TikTok is slowly coming back online in the US, which means you should soon be able to access the app as normal without having to find a workaround. However, in case of further blockages, it is important to remember that you need to take some extra steps.
Peterson of Proton advises people to use their VPN and sign up for TikTok from another country.
He said: “For some users, if they registered a new account outside the US and re-uploaded their content, they were able to bypass the ban in the US while using a VPN. For content consumers, this is a solution that could be pretty easy to implement, not for content creators.”
To make things easier, you should also use the VPN on a computer or device that is not tied to a SIM card whenever possible.
