The TikTok ban seems likely to happen

Justices on the Supreme Court indicated during oral arguments held on Friday that they were leaning toward signing off on legislation that would lead to a ban of TikTok unless it is sold by its present owners, Forbes reports. In May 2024, President Biden signed a law requiring ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns and operates TikTok, to sell the company before January 19, 2025, or effectively get shut down. The legislation was crafted in response to concerns over user privacy and ByteDance's connection to China's government. ByteDance has repeatedly maintained that the company operates independently and that the U.S government has not proven that the app has ever given user information to China.

During Friday's hearing, both the court's liberal and conservative justices expressed skepticism at ByteDance's legal arguments, which claim that legislation forcing a sale violates the First Amendment rights of its users. The federal government, meanwhile, argued that the app's current ownership constitutes a possible national security threat. A final decision from the court is expected in the coming days.

If the court does vote to enact the ban, the app will not vanish from phones, but it will no longer be updated and new users will not be able to download it to their devices.

Donald Trump, who will be inaugurated the day after the ban is set to take place, has expressed a desire to keep TikTok around, crediting the app for his victory in the 2020 election. He asked the Supreme Court in a legal filing to hold off on implementing the ban until after his inauguration; if the ban still goes into effect, he could as president issue a 90-day stay of the law if he could show to Congress that ByteDance was making progress towards a sale. ByteDance has been publicly opposed to any sale, and if the Supreme Court sides with the federal government, unless the company agreed to divest, it would make TikTok's closure all but certain.