One week after hearing arguments from TikTok, ByteDance and the U.S. government, the Supreme Court has decided to uphold the law that will ban TikTok on Sunday, Jan. 19, if its parent company, ByteDance, does not take steps to sell the app before then.
The law passed in April 2024 with bipartisan support and was signed by President Biden. It was upheld by a Washington, D.C., federal court in December following a challenge from TikTok and ByteDance, which argued that the ban violated the app's First Amendment right to free speech.
The federal government argued that the problem is that parent-company ByteDance is based in China and therefore a potential threat to national security.
On Friday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the issues surrounding TikTok are now the Trump administration's responsibility.
"TikTok should remain available to Americans, but simply under American ownership or other ownership that addresses the national security concerns identified by Congress in developing this law," she said in a statement. "Given the sheer fact of timing, this Administration recognizes that actions to implement the law simply must fall to the next Administration, which takes office on Monday."
President-elect Donald Trump said the Supreme Court's decision was "expected," and added that he'll be making a decision on the fate of TikTok "in the not too distant future."
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew thanked Trump in a TikTok video posted Friday afternoon and called Trump's "commitment" to keeping the app in the U.S. "a strong stand for the First Amendment and against arbitrary censorship."
Throughout a Jan. 10 hearing at the Supreme Court, the justices reiterated that the law would allow TikTok to keep operating in the United States if it separated itself from ByteDance.
"The law doesn't say TikTok has to shut down," Justice Amy Coney Barrett said during the hearing. "It says ByteDance has to divest." Justice Brett Kavanaugh also pointed to another federal law, enacted in 1934, that prevents foreign countries from being involved in U.S. communications infrastructure.
In light of the Supreme Court’s decision, and ByteDance’s repeated indications that it has no plans to sell TikTok, the ban on the popular app with over 170 million users in the U.S. is now set to take effect on Jan. 19.
Why did the Supreme Court uphold the law banning TikTok?
On Jan. 17, the Supreme Court wrote in its response to TikTok v. Garland that "the judgment" of the D.C. Circuit is "affirmed" and the TikTok ban should be upheld unless ByteDance sells it. The decision is "per curiam," which means that the court ruling is not attributed to any specific judge but to the justices as a whole.
“There is no doubt that, for more than 170 million Americans, TikTok offers a distinctive and expansive outlet for expression, means of engagement, and source of community,” the justices wrote. “But Congress has determined that divestiture is necessary to address its well-supported national security concerns regarding TikTok’s data collection practices and relationship with a foreign adversary. … We conclude that the challenged provisions do not violate petitioners’ First Amendment rights.”
Read more from Yahoo News: Key takeaways from the Supreme Court hearing on the TikTok ban
Why wouldn’t ByteDance sell TikTok to stop the ban?
The only way to avoid a full ban on TikTok in the United States is if ByteDance either sells the app or at least proves it’s trying to divest from the app.
Multiple American companies and entrepreneurs have offered to buy TikTok from ByteDance, including former Los Angeles Dodgers owner and Project Liberty founder Frank McCourt, who in December pulled together a group of investors. One of those investors is Kevin O'Leary, a Shark Tank host, who told Yahoo Finance that the group is "willing to pay up to $20 billion" for the app. Project Liberty announced last week that it had formally submitted a proposal to ByteDance to buy TikTok.
YouTube's famous creator Jimmy Donaldson, better known as MrBeast, posted on Jan. 15 that he had met with several billionaires and had "an offer ready" to buy TikTok. He did not share much information on who he was meeting with or what the plan looked like.
Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week that Chinese government officials allegedly discussed selling TikTok to Elon Musk, who also owns X. Musk has not commented on the reports but has publicly slammed the TikTok ban and said it was "contrary to freedom of speech and expression."
Companies like Oracle, Walmart and Microsoft expressed interest in buying TikTok in 2020.
However, ByteDance has made it clear since April that it has no intention of selling TikTok, despite the U.S. ban.
TikTok has repeatedly argued that it is not possible to separate from ByteDance because that would separate the app from all the technologies that have contributed to TikTok’s success, such as its algorithm. Even though TikTok could develop its own algorithm independent of ByteDance, TikTok’s attorney Noel Francisco argued to the Supreme Court on Jan. 10 that the platform's principals think it would be “an incredibly bad business decision for them to abandon this algorithm.”
What's going to happen to the TikTok app once it’s banned?
If you do not have TikTok on your phone by Jan. 19, you will not be able to download it once the ban takes effect. On Dec. 13, the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the U.S. and the Chinese Community Party wrote letters to Apple and Google — which own the two main mobile app stores — reiterating that they must remove TikTok from their stores when the ban takes effect.
The Department of Justice has stated that the ban will "not directly prohibit the continued use of TikTok" and won't immediately eliminate the app from individuals' phones. Instead, over time, without updates or technical help from TikTok, the app will slowly become "unworkable."
However, Reuters reported on Wednesday, Jan. 15, that TikTok planned to shut down the app fully on Jan. 19. TikTok has not responded to Yahoo News' request for comment.
In response to the news, the Biden administration is considering ways to prevent TikTok from being "suddenly banned on Sunday" in the U.S., an official told NBC News. The administration's goal is for the ban to go into effect on app stores on Jan. 19 but not immediately impact downloaded apps from functioning.
India had about 200 million TikTok users before it banned the platform and dozens of other Chinese-owned apps four years ago, following a military clash along the India-China border. In response to the ban, India's former TikTok users instead migrated to platforms like Google's YouTube Shorts and Instagram's Reels.
Read more from Yahoo News: Will the TikTok ban take effect Sunday? Could Trump save it? Here's where things stand on the app shutting down
Could you still use TikTok even if it’s banned?
In addition to the mobile app, TikTok is also watchable as a website, and it's not entirely clear whether internet providers are expected to block access to TikTok's website in the United States on Jan. 19.
For the app specifically, there is also the possibility users can download VPNs — a virtual private network — to make it seem like they’re operating in countries outside of the U.S. where TikTok is still available.
"Usually, users circumvent bans of certain applications by changing locations with a VPN and reaching restricted websites," Laura Tyrylytė, head of public relations at NordVPN, told PCMag. However, the VPN tactic would work only for people who downloaded the app before Jan. 19.
Could Trump reverse the ban?
On Thursday, just days before the ban was set to take effect, the Biden administration said the current president had no plans to enforce the law in his final days in office. An official told the Associated Press the administration was leaving the fate of the app to Trump.
The day after the ban is scheduled to take place, Trump will be inaugurated — with Chew expected to be in attendance. Trump has reportedly considered issuing an executive order that would halt the TikTok ban for up to 90 days so that his administration could either negotiate a sale or another solution to protect the app from being banned in the United States.
However, it’s not clear whether issuing an executive order would counteract a law that Congress and the Supreme Court approved.
Trump has taken varying positions on TikTok over the years. When he was president in August 2020, he threatened to ban the app if ByteDance didn’t sell it, but multiple federal judges blocked his attempts at the time.
But while running for reelection in 2024, Trump launched his own TikTok account and told followers he would "save TikTok in America" if he won the election.
The law does include a provision that allows the president to pause the TikTok ban for 90 days if ByteDance proves it is in the process of selling the app, Forbes reported. Trump could try to pause the ban himself for the first 90 days of his administration, but without evidence that ByteDance is actively working to divest from TikTok, his decision could be challenged in court.
Another option would be for Trump to ask his Justice Department and attorney general not to enforce the ban, Alan Z. Rozenshtein, an associate law professor at the University of Minnesota Law School wrote at Lawfare Media. However, in that case, most companies and individual users would probably be discouraged from using the app, since doing so would still technically be considered breaking the law.