Yes, a TikTok ban is closer than ever. No, your app probably won’t just disappear

There are a lot of lingering questions about how the ban would work in practice because there’s no precedent for the US government blocking such a major social media platform. But some things are clear, including the fact that TikTok won’t suddenly disappear from existing users’ phones.

TikTok’s fate in the United States is now in the hands of the Supreme Court. And things are not looking good for the app. The Supreme Court on Friday heard oral arguments over the law that could ban TikTok in the United States. The law, signed by President Joe Biden in April, requires TikTok to be sold off from its China-based parent company, ByteDance, or face a US ban. The hearing did not seem to go well for TikTok, making it more likely than ever that the ban will go into effect starting on January 19. Most of the justices appeared likely to uphold the law, lobbing tough questions at lawyers for TikTok and its users about the relevance of their argument that the law violates the First Amendment. There are a lot of lingering questions about how the ban would work in practice because there’s no precedent for the US government blocking a major social media platform. And much of how the government plans to enforce it remains unclear. Even TikTok attorney Noel Francisco seemed uncertain about how exactly a ban would go down. “On January 19, as I understand it, we shut down,” he said. Beyond being unavailable in the app stores, “what the act says is that all of the other types of service providers can’t provide service either,” Francisco said. “So essentially what they’re going to say is that, I think, ‘we’re not going to be providing the services necessary to have you see it.’ So it’s essentially going to stop operating. I think that’s the consequence of this law.”