TikTok will be banned in the US on January 19 – unless the Supreme Court accepts a last ditch legal tender of its Chinese owner, ByteDance, that it would be unconstitutional.
But even if the nation’s highest judicial body agrees with lower courts — and Congress — that the platform is a threat to national security, will that actually stop Americans from using it?
Will there be a way around the ban — or could President-elect Donald Trump find a way to stop the law he says he opposed, even if the courts uphold it.
And whatever happens with TikTok, who will benefit from the uncertainty clouding its future?
Can people still use TikTok even if it’s banned?
The most likely way the US would ban TikTok is to order app stores, such as the Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store, to make it unavailable for download in that region.
US lawmakers have already told tech companies to be ready to remove the app from their stores if the ban goes into effect.
This would mean that people could no longer use legitimate means to access TikTok – although it would also mean that people who already have it would still have it on their phones.
Since the app would no longer be publicly available, new updates could no longer be delivered to US users — making the app noisier and, ultimately, unusable.
Not to mention that many updates are available to fix app security holes, so if TikTok stops getting updates, it could give hackers millions of devices to target.
Of course, there are ways around such a ban.
Many videos are already circulating on TikTok informing users how to use a VPN (virtual private network) – a way to make it look like you’re in a different region.
The region of the app stores can also be changed on most devices, so anyone can theoretically access apps from other countries – although this can cause other problems, not to mention possibly violating the terms of service agreement.
It is also possible to install apps downloaded from the Internet by modifying the device – which can violate copyright law – and comes with its own risks. However, the government has also foreseen this and is also proposing to ban “Internet hosting services” from giving people access to the app.
So if the ban takes this form, it seems likely that those who chose to use TikTok once it goes into effect will be able to do so — but it won’t be the experience they’re used to.
How else could TikTok be banned?
There are still other avenues available to the government — for example, after India banned TikTok in 2020, it ordered internet service providers to block access to the app altogether.
Even if people were using a VPN, TikTok could theoretically look at a user’s device and identify if their mobile number starts with +1, to tell if they’re in the US, and then simply show them a screen that says the app is not available in their country.
It remains to be seen whether TikTok will decide to help the government with its own ban – but Reuters reports that it plans to do so.
TikTok’s own lawyer told the Supreme Court that he believed the app would “go dark” in the US if it did not rule in its favour.
The complexity of the problem means that even experts are not clear on what will happen next.
Professor Milton L. Mueller of the Georgia Institute of Technology – who filed the legal brief in support of TikTok – said the lack of clarity about how far the US could extend its law enforcement powers means knowing what technically happens if the ban goes ahead difficult to determine.
But he said that what was clear was the impact it would have on users and the Internet itself.
“It would completely legitimize the fragmentation of the Internet along national or jurisdictional borders,” he said.
Will Trump still be able to intervene?
Trump has been clear that he does not want the law to go into effect, asking the Supreme Court to delay its implementation while he seeks a “political solution.”
But if the justices uphold it, Trump has no authority to overturn the law, which would take effect the day before he returns to office.
But he could have simply told the Justice Department not to enforce it.
The government would effectively tell Apple and Google that they would not be penalized for continuing to allow access to TikTok, meaning the law would remain in place but essentially be redundant.
Obviously, companies could be embarrassed about breaking the law even if they were told it was okay to do so — because that would effectively mean they had to take the president at his word that they wouldn’t face punishment.
What platforms might people turn to instead?
TikTok says it has 170 million users in the US who spent an average of 51 minutes a day on the app in 2024.
Banning TikTok or making it less usable also creates a huge opportunity for its big tech rivals, says Jasmine Enberg, an analyst at Insider Intelligence.
“Met-owned Instagram Reels and Google-owned YouTube Shorts are the most natural fit for displaced users, creators and advertisers,” she says.
Facebook could also benefit, although Ms. Enberg says, like all Meta platforms, controversial policy changes announced boss Mark Zuckerberg could potentially reduce its appeal.
Users bring in advertisers – so a ban could be a big financial boost to those platforms.
“The chief marketing officers we spoke with confirmed that they would redirect their media dollars to Meta and Google if they could no longer advertise on TikTok — the same behavior we saw in India when they banned TikTok in 2020,” said Forrester Principal Analyst Kelsey Chickering.
Lemon8, which is also owned by ByteDance, would be the obvious place for people to go after the ban – but the law stipulates that this also applies to other apps owned or operated by the company. This means Lemon8 will likely also face unavailability in the US.
Other potential winners include Twitch, which has made a name for itself by hosting live streams – a popular feature on TikTok. Twitch is well known especially to gamers, although it continues to grow with other content.
Other Chinese-owned platforms, such as Xiaohongshu – known as RedNote among its American users – has seen rapid growth in the US and UK.
Still, some suggest that no existing app can really replace TikTok, particularly its TikTok Shop feature, which allows users to buy products directly from videos and earns US creators a lot of money.
Craig Atkinson, CEO of digital marketing agency Code3, said there is no direct competitor that people can easily switch to — and notes that his agency was signing new client deals to create TikTok Shop campaigns as recently as December.
Could a new customer appear after all?
Until now, ByteDance has been adamant that no sale of its prize assets in the US is involved.
But could that change if it is indeed banned – and when the president who prides himself on the “art of the deal” returns to the White House?
Potential buyers continue to line up – with Bloomberg News reports Tuesday that the company still plans to sell to billionaire Elon Musk Meanwhile, TikTok described it as “pure fiction”.
Trump’s former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and billionaire businessman Frank McCourt are among those who have previously expressed interest in buying.
Mr. McCourt, the former owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team, said he had secured $20 billion in verbal commitments from a consortium of investors to bid for TikTok.
There is an even more left-wing – and significantly more frivolous – proposed owner.
The biggest YouTuber in the world MrBeast claimed that he is now competing to close the deal after billionaires approached him about it.
While it may seem like a joke, he has a significant financial incentive to try to save the app – MrBeast has more than 100 million followers on TikTok.
