The US Supreme Court upholds a law banning the app

The US Supreme Court has upheld a law that would ban TikTok nationwide unless its Chinese parent ByteDance sells the platform by this Sunday.

TikTok has challenged the law, arguing that it violates free speech protections for the app’s more than 170 million users, which it says it has in the United States.

But that argument was rejected by the country’s highest court, meaning TikTok must now find an approved buyer for the US version of the app or face removal from app stores and web hosting services.

However, the outgoing Biden administration and President-elect Donald Trump are trying to work out a reprieve for the platform, which US authorities have warned poses a national security risk.

Democratic and Republican lawmakers voted to ban the video-sharing app last year over concerns about its ties to the Chinese government. TikTok has repeatedly said it does not share information with Beijing.

The law gives TikTok’s owner, ByteDance, until January 19 to sell the US version of the platform to a neutral party to avoid a full ban.

That would mean that starting Sunday, Apple and Google would no longer offer the app to new users and would not provide any security updates to current users — which could eventually kill it.

The company has promised not to sell TikTok.