TikTok has warned that it will go dark in the United States on Sunday unless President Joe Biden's administration provides assurances to major service providers, such as Apple and Google, that it will not enforce a ban on the platform.
This statement comes just hours after the Supreme Court upheld a law banning TikTok on national security grounds, threatening its 170 million US users with an immediate shutdown if its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, does not sell the app.
The court’s unanimous 9-0 decision has thrust TikTok into uncertainty, with former President Donald Trump vowing to rescue the platform upon his return to the presidency.
"TikTok's scale and susceptibility to foreign adversary control, together with the vast swaths of sensitive data the platform collects, justify differential treatment to address the government’s national security concerns," the Supreme Court stated in its unsigned opinion.
The law, passed by a bipartisan majority last year, mandates the cessation of certain services to TikTok and other foreign adversary-controlled apps offered through platforms like Apple and Google.
Despite this, TikTok’s management remains hopeful that Trump’s administration will push for its continued operation.
In a statement, TikTok emphasised the need for clarity from the Biden administration. "Unless the Biden Administration immediately provides a definitive statement to satisfy the most critical service providers assuring non-enforcement, unfortunately TikTok will be forced to go dark on January 19," the company said.
The White House declined to comment on the matter.
Some users have expressed dismay at the potential ban, with Lourd Asprec, a Houston-based content creator with 16.3 million followers, saying, "I don’t4 even care about China stealing my data. They can take all my data from me. Like, if anything, I’ll go to China myself and give them my data."
As the January 19 deadline approaches, millions of users are migrating to other Chinese-owned platforms like RedNote, which presents challenges due to its all-Mandarin interface.
Attorney General Merrick Garland affirmed the court's decision, stating that the law protects US national security from potential threats posed by authoritarian regimes accessing sensitive American data.
As President-elect Donald Trump casts uncertainty over whether the ban will be enforced, attention is turning to major companies like Google and Apple, which are expected to remove the app from their platforms within two days.
While the Supreme Court upheld a federal law on Friday that could lead to a nationwide TikTok ban, the future of the popular social media platform remains unclear.
As the clock ticks towards midnight on Sunday, when the law could take effect, tech experts and users alike are closely monitoring the situation to see what unfolds over the weekend and beyond.
Meanwhile, Trump’s promise to negotiate a solution once he takes office adds an additional layer of uncertainty, while the Biden administration has indicated it will not enforce the law on its final day in office.
"What happens next will be decided by the next administration," said President Biden, as he refrained from intervening in the ongoing debate.
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