TikTok plans to shut down in the US on Sunday amidst “sell or ban” law

Following the implementation of the “sell or ban” law in the U.S., TikTok is planning to shut down its U.S. operations on Sunday, the deadline day. According to inside sources, the app used by over 10 million Americans will fizzle out when the federal ban takes effect.

Recall that a bill, signed into law by President Biden in April 2024, gives TikTok’s parent company ByteDance until January 19 to divest its U.S. operations to another owner or face a ban thereby halting its download on Google and Apple.

The latest report by The Washington Post explained that President-elect Donald Trump, whose term begins a day after the ban would start, is considering issuing an executive order to suspend enforcement of a shutdown for 60 to 90 days. However, clarifications were not given on how Trump could turn this around legally. 

Earlier in December, US President-elect Donald Trump urged the court to delay its decision until he returns to the White House to enable him to seek a “political solution” to resolve the issues. 

The latest reports suggesting that the platform’s U.S. base sale to Elon Musk, a close associate of Trump, which TikTok has now disregarded as “pure fiction” further places a huge uncertainty on the platform’s fate in the U.S.

“TikTok itself is a fantastic platform. We’re going to find a way to preserve it but protect people’s data,” Trump’s incoming national security adviser Mike Waltz told Fox News on Wednesday. 

An intervention from President Joe Biden now seems impossible after a White House official told Reuters on Wednesday that Biden has no plans to block a ban in his final days in office.

U.S. Senator Ed Markey on Wednesday sought unanimous consent to extend the deadline for ByteDance to divest TikTok by 270 days but Republican Senator Tom Cotton blocked the proposal. Last week, the Supreme Court seemed inclined to uphold the law, despite calls from Trump and lawmakers to extend the deadline.

The app in defence of the suit has sought a delay in the implementation of the law, which they say violates the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment protection against government abridgement of free speech.

TikTok estimated in a court filing last month that one-third of its 170 million American users would stop accessing the platform if the ban lasted a month.

The US government has often argued that without a sale, TikTok could be used by China as a tool for spying and political manipulation. The Supreme Court appears indifferent to upholding the law ahead of the January 19 deadline for the company to sell the App.

TikTok prepares for a ban

If TikTok is eventually banned, the video content platform plans for users attempting to open the app to see a pop-up message directing them to a website with information about the ban. “We go dark. Essentially, the platform shuts down,” TikTok lawyer Noel Francisco told the Supreme Court last week.

Also according to sources, the company plans to give users an option to download all their data so that they can take a record of their personal information. Users who have downloaded TikTok “might” still be able to use the app, except that the law also bars U.S. companies from providing services to enable the distribution, maintenance, or updating of the App. 

If TikTok is eventually shot down in the U.S., it could become unavailable for users in many other countries. The company said in a court filing last month that it was needed to “avoid interruption of services for tens of millions of TikTok users outside the United States,” hundreds of service providers in the U.S. helped make the platform available to TikTok users around the world which are set to be hindered starting from Sunday.

TikTok had said that the prohibitions would eventually make the app unusable, noting in the filing that “data centres would almost certainly conclude that they can no longer store” TikTok code, content, or data.

The sources also hinted that the shutdown is aimed at protecting TikTok’s service providers from legal liability and making it easier to resume operations in a relatively short time if President-elect Donald Trump opted to roll back any ban.

The U.S. Supreme Court is deciding whether to uphold the law and allow the video content app to be banned on Sunday. It is also considering whether to overturn the law or pause it to give the court more time to decide.

The Court also holds that the U.S. government doesn’t have evidence that TikTok has engaged in covert content manipulation in the U.S. but its parent ByteDance has responded to the Chinaese government’s demands to censor content in China and other regions.

Another top concern for the court is how it can ignore the fact that the platform is owned by a Chinese company, ByteDance, which is subject to Chinese law especially because that law allows China’s government to access and control private data the company holds.

The final hearing and deadline is on Jan 19. If TikTok loses its case, the app will go dark, causing App stores to remove it and other service providers will stop allowing access. Perhaps, the Supreme Court might issue a preliminary injunction which would buy TikTok some time to get a lifeline from President-elect Donald Trump.

Another possible outcome is the app getting an extension to the January 19 deadline.

Also Read: Chinese government considers selling TikTok to Elon Musk in US “sell or ban” law.