What will happen if TikTok is banned?

TikTok will be banned in the US on January 19 – unless the Supreme Court takes a last legal bid from its Chinese owner, ByteDance, that doing so would be unconstitutional.

But even if the nation’s highest judiciary agrees with lower courts — and Congress — that the platform poses a threat to national security, will that actually stop Americans from using it?

Will there be ways around the ban — could President-elect Donald Trump find a way to stop the law, which he says he opposes, even if the courts uphold it.

And whatever happens to TikTok, who will benefit from the uncertainty surrounding its future?

The most likely way for the US to ban TikTok is to order app stores like the Google Play Store and Apple App Store to make it unavailable for download in that region.

US lawmakers have already ordered tech firms to be ready to remove the app from their stores if the ban takes effect.

This would mean that people could no longer use legitimate means to access TikTok – although it would also mean that people who already got it would still have it on their phones.

Since the app will no longer be publicly available, new updates can no longer be delivered to users in the US – making the app more buggy and eventually unusable.

Not to mention that many updates are provided to fix security holes in the apps, so if TikTok stops receiving updates, hackers could get their hands on millions of devices.

Of course, there are ways around such a ban.

There are already many videos circulating on TikTok that inform users about using a VPN (virtual private network), a way to pretend 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 potentially violating the terms of service.

It is also possible to install applications downloaded from the Internet by modifying the device – which may violate copyright law – and carries its own risks. However, the government has also foreseen this, so it is also proposing to ban “Internet hosting services” from providing people with access to the app.

So with the ban taking this form, it seems likely that those who choose to use TikTok after it goes into effect will be able to do so — but it won’t be the experience they’re used to.

There are other avenues available to the government going forward — for example, after India banned TikTok in 2020, it ordered ISPs to block access to the app entirely.

And even if people were using a VPN, TikTok could theoretically look at a user’s device and see if their mobile phone number starts with +1 to determine if they’re in the US, and then just show them a screen saying the app isn’t available on them the 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 be “blacked out” in the US if it did not rule in its favour.

The complexity of the issue means that even the experts are not sure what will happen next.

Professor Milton L. The Georgia Institute of Technology’s Mueller, who filed a legal brief in support of TikTok, said the lack of clarity about how far the U.S. can extend its enforcement powers makes it difficult to know what would technically happen in the event of a ban. difficult to determine.

But he said it was clear that it would affect users and the Internet itself.

“It would completely legitimize the fragmentation of the Internet along national or jurisdictional borders,” he said.

Trump has made it clear he doesn’t want the law to go into effect and has asked the Supreme Court to delay its implementation while he looks for a “policy solution.”

But if the courts uphold him, Trump has no power to repeal the law, which will take effect the day before he returns to office.

But he could just tell 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 would essentially be redundant.

Clearly, firms may be loathe to break the law, even if they’ve been told it’s okay to do so — since that would effectively require them to take the president’s word for it that they won’t be punished.

TikTok says it has 170 million users in the US who spent an average of 51 minutes a day on the app in 2024.

Ban TikTok or make it less user-friendly, and that creates a huge opportunity for big tech rivals, says Jasmine Enberg, an analyst at Insider Intelligence.

“Instagram Reels, owned by Meta, and YouTube Shorts, owned by Google, are the most natural fit for mobile users, creators and advertisers,” she says.

Facebook could also benefit, although Ms. Enberg says that, like all Meta platforms, controversial policy changes Being announced by boss Mark Zuckerberg could potentially reduce its appeal.

Users attract advertisers – so a ban could be a big financial boost for these platforms.

“The CMOs we spoke to confirmed that they will redirect their media to Meta and Google if they can no longer advertise on TikTok – the same thing we saw in India when they banned TikTok in 2020 year,” said Forrester principal analyst Kelsey Chickering.

Lemon8, which is also owned by ByteDance, would be an obvious place for people to go after the ban, but the law says it also applies to other apps owned or operated by the firm. This means that Lemon8 will likely face being made unavailable in the US as well.

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 along with other content.

Other platforms owned by China such as Xiaohongshu – known as RedNote among US users – has seen rapid growth in the US and UK.

However, some believe that no existing app can truly replace TikTok, particularly its TikTok Shop feature, which allows users to purchase products directly from videos and brings in a lot of money for American creators.

Craig Atkinson, CEO of digital marketing agency Code3, said there was no direct competitor that people could easily switch to, noting that his agency signed new contracts with clients to create TikTok Shop campaigns back in December.

Until now, ByteDance has been adamant that a sale of its prize assets in the US is not under consideration.

But could that change if it’s actually banned — and if a president who prides himself on the “art of the deal” returns to the White House?

Potential buyers continue to line up – p This was reported by Bloomberg News on Tuesday that the firm was considering a sale to billionaire Elon Musk TikTok has since described it as “pure fiction”.

Former Trump Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and billionaire businessman Frank McCourt are among those who have previously expressed interest in buying it.

Mr. McCourt, the former owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team, said he had received $20 billion in verbal commitments from a consortium of investors to make a bet on TikTok.

There is an even more left-wing – and far less serious – proposed owner.

The biggest YouTuber in the world MrBeast claimed to be involved in the deal now after the 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.