TikTok will be banned from the App Store in the United States as of Sunday, January 19, as the United States Supreme Court has unanimously upheld the law that forces ByteDance to sell TikTok by the 19th or face a ban in the United States.
Websites and app stores, including Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store, will be prohibited from offering the app for installation. While devices that have the a already installed could continue to function, TikTok has said it will shut down the app when the ban takes effect.
The Supreme Court failed to reverse the ban, and today said [PDF] that it is upholding the “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act.” Chinese TikTok parent company ByteDance must sell the U.S. version of the app in order for it to continue to operate.
The law requires TikTok to be sold to a non-Chinese company, and ByteDance was given nine months in which to do so. However, the company chose to appeal the ruling instead of searching for buyers. ByteDance argued the law was unconstitutional, as it violated the First Amendment. Supreme Court rejected that argument, saying that as a Chinese company, ByteDance does not have First Amendment rights.
ByteDance has repeatedly said it would not sell TikTok, as the code was quite complex and it would need to be uncoupled from ByteDance’s software tools. The Chinese government has opposed a sale, as the proprietary TikTok algorithm would need to be included in a sale. It is possible that now the ban has been upheld, they may reconsider selling the app.
President-elect Donald Trump – who asked the Supreme Court to delay making a decision and to delay TikTok’s ban, but saw the court decline to do so – takes office one day following the day the ban goes into effect, and Trump told CNN, “It ultimately goes up to me, so you’re going to see what I’m going to do.” He went on to say “Congress has given me the decision, so I’ll be making the decision.”
While ByteDance has said it will pull the plug on the U.S. TikTok app, users may still be able to access it by using a VPN to make it appear the user is connecting from another country. However, this would depend on whether or not ByteDance will simply ban all users designated as U.S. users from connecting, no matter where they appear to be located.
