How would a Tiktok ban work in the US?
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Biden signed a law banning the app in January – if parent firm ByteDance fails to block it, here’s what could happen. The US supreme court will hear arguments on Friday from TikTok and its China-based owner ByteDance, which is seeking to block a law signed by Joe Biden that will ban the short-form video app beginning on 19 January unless it is divested from ByteDance. TikTok has said divestment is “not possible technologically, commercially, or legally” and requested an injunction to pause the ban during the legal process.
More than 170m Americans use TikTok. Lawyers for the company contend that banning the app violates the first amendment rights of those tens of millions of users; the argument did not sway a federal appeals court, which upheld the ban-or-sale bill in December. Congress passed the legislation with a bipartisan majority in April. US legislators fear that China will spread propaganda through the app, though they have produced no documentation of such manipulation. Donald Trump, who first championed banning the app in 2020, now opposes it after finding a large audience there during the presidential election. He has filed a brief on TikTok’s behalf to stay the ban until he takes office on 20 January.
Here’s what could happen on 19 January. New users will not be able to download TikTok from app stores and existing users will not be able to update the app, because the law prohibits any entity from facilitating the download or maintenance of the TikTok application. In a 13 December letter, US lawmakers told Apple and Alphabet’s Google, which operate the two main mobile app stores, that they must be ready to remove TikTok from their stores on 19 January.
