Lawmakers' months-long battle to ban social media app TikTok in the United States came to a head Friday as the Supreme Court heard arguments to decide the fate of the app for its 170 million American users.
While the justices across the ideological spectrum asked tough questions on both sides, the overall tone and tenor seemed to indicate greater skepticism toward the arguments made by lawyers for TikTok and its users that the First Amendment prevented Congress from enacting the law .
If TikTok, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, is banned on January 19, here's what users can expect:
Will TikTok still be available to download on app stores?
No. The law, passed by Congress last year, would make it illegal for app stores owned by companies like Apple and Google to distribute or release updates to TikTok, risking stiff civil penalties: $5,000 per U.S. user, which could amount to hundreds of billions of dollars.
If TikTok is banned, it will likely disappear from app stores overnight. (Apple and Google have not commented on their plans to remove the app.)
Apple has long complied with foreign governments that ordered the removal of apps in their countries. Last April, for example, Apple removed communications apps such as WhatsApp, Signal, Threads and Telegram from its app store in China at the request of the Chinese government.
Is the TikTok app still on my phone if I've already downloaded it?
Yes. The law does not make it illegal to have the TikTok app on your phone.
“The letter of the law is about future downloads and updates,” said Dean Ball, a research fellow at the Mercatus Center, a think tank at George Mason University. “It's not about taking the app off people's phones.”
But without the ability for ByteDance to release updates to TikTok through app stores, the app will likely deteriorate over time. Still, advertisers expect some use in the United States after the ban, and new contracts to advertise on the app continue to be signed as of last month, said Craig Atkinson, the CEO of Code3, a digital marketing agency.
TikTok can also intervene before the app deteriorates and no longer allows users in the United States to access videos on the platform after January 19.
In India, which banned TikTok in 2020, users of the app are presented with a screen that says “Service unavailable” and users are blocked from the platform.
TikTok has not said whether it will restrict access to the app if it is banned and did not respond to a request for comment.
Would TikTok still be accessible via an internet browser?
No. In addition to banning app store companies from hosting the app, the law also applies to internet hosting companies.
However, it's likely that users can still access TikTok if they use a virtual private network, or VPN, which encrypts a user's location.
The ban “could even be a big business boost for VPN providers,” Mr Atkinson said.
Could newly elected President Donald J. Trump step in and save the app?
Some experts believe it is possible that Apple and Google could decide not to comply with the law, betting that newly elected President Donald J. Trump, who has expressed his support for TikTok, would order his attorney general do not enforce the law.
“But unless some new information is added to the equation, I would be very surprised if Apple and Google did that,” Mr. Ball said.
Trump could also change his mind, or even use the threat of enforcing the law as leverage against the two companies, said JB Ferguson, a managing director at Capstone who focuses on technology.
“I don't know if you're adequately defending shareholder value if you don't take the law seriously, even if you believe Trump,” Mr. Ferguson said of Apple and Google.
