TikTok ban - how much longer?CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty ImagesIts the question now being asked by 170 million American users who have been left dark as TikTok shutters its U.S. operations for the time being at least. When will the app be back? And the nightmare scenario has come true. This isnt just an App Store issue, this is a platform issue. TikTok has pushed its adherence to the ban to the fullest extent.Many users who read the news commentary in the lead up to Sunday expected a VPN might help circumvent the ban. Not so. Unfortunately, VPNs arent currently working to bypass the ban, Top10VPNs Simon Migliano told me. Bytedance seems to be completely committed to preventing even a single U.S. user from accessing their TikTok account.As I reported early this morning, just after the ban came into effect, the only workaround seems to be using a VPN to create a new account from a non-U.S. IP and SIM, Migliano confirmed. But thats as good as it gets at the moment if your TikTok account was created in the U.S. or with an American SIM, then changing your IP address or spoofing your GPS data wont unblock TikTok as you would normally expect.The overnight surge in VPN demand in the U.S. has been as high as 827%, a really significant increase as VPNs are already very popular in the U.S., so it takes a lot to move the needle like this. That just underlines the sudden impact TikToks shuttering its platform has had on the American public.MORE FOR YOUAnd thats critical because it underlines the political angle here. TikToks decision to trigger the biggest impact it could, the fact that Biden has essentially deferred enforcement to the incoming Trump administration, the warm words from Donald Trump himself as to his plans to extend TikToks timeline as soon as tomorrow to see a deal done, and now some rumblings from Republican leaders that reversing TikToks shuttering might not be as easy as thought.And then theres the issue of the devil you know the inference that while TikTok has its issues, were several years and a whole lot of scrutiny into a containing strategy. The raft of new Chinese apps surging on apps stores in the U.S., Rednote in particular, has security implications that no-one has yet really grappled with.All told, I expect your iPhone and Android apps will be restored in some way by the end of this week it could be much sooner than that, maybe even by Tuesday if all goes smoothly. But TikTok will need to change as a consequence of all this, and it needs ByteDance to compromise on a U.S. deal despite reluctance to do so in the past or we will find ourselves back here more permanently. Right now it seems inconceivable that the huge public impact will be ignored.As painful as it is, ByteDance has played a clever but risky hand. In going further than needed, it has made a stark point and forced the timing of what happens next. But the risk will be the unintended consequences of that decision. No-one can fully control what happens next, not ByteDance and not even Donal Trump there are too many moving parts.