TikTok will be banned in the US
on 19 January - unless the Supreme
Court accepts a last ditch legal bid
from its Chinese owner, ByteDance,
that to do so would be unconstitutional.
But even if the country’s highest judicial authority agrees with the lower courts - and Congress - that the platform is a threat to national security will that actually stop Americans using it?
Will there be ways to bypass the ban - or could president-elect Donald Trump find a way to stop a law he says he opposed to, even if the courts uphold it.
And whatever happens to TikTok, who stands to benefit from the uncertainty clouding its future?
Can people still use TikTok even if it’s banned?
The most likely way the US would ban TikTok is to order app stores, such as the Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store, to make it unavailable for download in that region.
US lawmakers have already told tech firms to be ready to remove the app from their stores if a ban comes into force.
That would mean people could no longer use a legitimate means to access TikTok - though it would also mean people who’ve already got it would still have it on their phones.
Because the app would not be publicly available anymore, new updates could no longer be delivered to users in the US - which would make the app buggier and, eventually, unusable.
Not to mention that many updates are provided to fix security holes in apps, so if TikTok stopped getting updates that could present hackers with millions of devices to target.
Protestors continue to gather outside the Supreme Court in a last ditch bid to convince lawmakers to listen to their plight.
Of course, there are ways around such a ban. There are already many videos circulating on TikTok informing users how to use a VPN (virtual private network) - a way of making it appear as if you are in another region.
The region of app stores can also be changed on most devices, so anyone can theoretically access apps from other countries - though this may cause other problems, not to mention likely breaking terms of service agreements.
It is also possible to install apps downloaded from the internet by modifying a device - which may break copyright law - and comes with its own risks.
However the government has also anticipated this so is also proposing to ban “internet hosting services” from giving people access to the app.
So if the ban took this kind of form it seems likely that those who are determined to use TikTok after it comes into effect will be able to do so - but it won’t be the experience they are used to.
How else could TikTok be banned? There are still other routes available to the government down the road - for example, after India banned TikTok in 2020, it ordered internet providers to block access to the app altogether.
And even if people did use a VPN, TikTok could theoretically look at a user’s device and identify whether their mobile number starts with a +1, to discern whether they are based in the US, and then simply present them with a screen saying the app is not available in their country.
It remains to be seen whether TikTok would decide to assist the government in its own ban - but it is being reported by Reuters that it plans to do so.
TikTok’s own lawyer told the
Supreme Court that he believes the
app will “go dark” in the US unless it
rules in its favour.
The complexity of the issue means
even the experts are unclear about
what happens next.
