The future of the popular social media app TikTok hangs in the balance as the Supreme Court weighs a potential ban, but when could users know what will happen?
While answers on what exactly could happen remain unclear, an important deadline looms.
Here's what to know:
When does the TikTok ban take effect?
TikTok, which has been a cultural phenomenon, could be banned on Jan. 19 under a law that forces the platform to cut ties with its China-based parent company, ByteDance, or shut down its U.S. operation.
The fate of the social media platform will be decided by the Supreme Court, which last week heard oral arguments in a legal challenge to the statute and seemed likely to uphold the law. The court could rule on the case as soon as this week.
Meanwhile, President-elect Donald Trump has asked the justices to put the law on hold so he can negotiate a “political resolution” to the issue after he takes office.
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What will happen if TikTok is banned?
On Wednesday, NBC News, citing a person with knowledge of TikTok's planning, said the company is preparing to potentially make the app unavailable to its 170 million American users if the U.S. ban goes into effect Sunday. Still, with no Supreme Court decision made yet, active conversations were ongoing as of midday on Wednesday, the person said.
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Earlier reports had indicated if TikTok wasn’t sold to an approved buyer, the federal law would prohibit app stores, such as those operated by Apple and Google, from offering the popular app. It would also bar internet hosting services from hosting TikTok.
TikTok users who already have the app on their phones would continue to have access to it, but new users wouldn't be able to download the app, and existing ones would no longer be able to receive updates. Eventually, the app would be rendered unworkable, the Justice Department has said in court filings.
The person who spoke to NBC News said that option still remains on the table.
Trump’s pick for national security adviser, Florida Rep. Mike Waltz, also said in an interview on Wednesday that the president-elect is exploring options to “preserve” TikTok.
Waltz made the comment when Fox News anchor Bret Baier asked him about a report from The Washington Post that said Trump was considering an executive order to suspend enforcement of the ban.
Why could TikTok be banned?
The federal law was the culmination of a yearslong saga in Washington over TikTok, which the government sees as a national security threat due to its connections to China.
U.S. officials argue that the vast amounts of user data that TikTok collects, including sensitive information on viewing habits, could fall into the hands of the Chinese government through coercion. They also are concerned that the proprietary algorithm that fuels what users see on the app is vulnerable to manipulation by Chinese authorities, who could pressure ByteDance to shape content on the platform in a way that’s difficult to detect.
TikTok, which sued the government last year over the law, has long denied it could be used as a tool of Beijing.
The company negotiated with the Biden administration between 2021 and 2022 to resolve the concerns around U.S. data privacy and potential algorithmic manipulation. In court documents, it has accused the administration of essentially walking away from those negotiations after it presented a draft agreement in August 2022. But the Justice Department has said the Biden administration concluded the proposal was “insufficient” because it would maintain TikTok’s ties to China. The agency said the Executive Branch also could “neither trust ByteDance to comply nor detect noncompliance before it was too late.”
What is happening with the Supreme Court?
Hearing arguments in a momentous clash of free speech and national security concerns, Supreme Court justices seemed persuaded by arguments that the national security threat posed by the company's connections to China override concerns about restricting the speech either of TikTok or its 170 million users in the United States.
Early in arguments that lasted more than two and a half hours, Chief Justice John Roberts identified his main concern: TikTok’s ownership by China-based ByteDance and the parent company's requirement to cooperate with the Chinese government’s intelligence operations.
Only Justice Neil Gorsuch sounded like he would side with TikTok to find that the ban violates the Constitution.
Gorsuch labeled arguments advanced by the Biden administration in defense of the law a “paternalistic point of view.” TikTok, he said, has offered to post a warning that the content could be manipulated by the Chinese government.
“Don’t we normally assume that the best remedy for problematic speech is counter speech?” he asked Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, who defended the law for the Biden administration.
A warning wouldn’t be enough to counterbalance the spread of misinformation, Prelogar said.
Francisco and lawyer Jeffrey Fisher, representing content creators and TikTok users, repeatedly tried to focus the court on the First Amendment restrictions that would fall on TikTok and its users, imperiling the livelihood of content creators, if the law is allowed to take effect.
But compared to the mildly challenging questions directed to Prelogar, they faced skepticism from every justice other than Gorsuch.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh raised U.S. concerns about China accessing information on tens of millions of Americans, especially teenagers and people in their 20s, with whom TikTok is extremely popular.
“That seems like a huge concern for the future of the country,” said Kavanaugh, whose daughters are in that age range.
Roberts downplayed Fisher’s argument that banning TikTok violates American users’ free speech rights. “Congress is fine with the expression,” Roberts said. “They’re not fine with a foreign adversary, as they’ve determined it is, gathering all this information about the 170 million people who use TikTok.”
The justices are expected to act within days, almost certainly ahead of the Jan. 19 deadline.
What else could happen?
Some investors have been eyeing TikTok, including Trump’s Former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and billionaire businessman Frank McCourt. On Thursday, McCourt’s Project Liberty initiative said it, along with its unnamed partners, presented a proposal to ByteDance to acquire TikTok’s U.S. assets. The consortium, which includes “Shark Tank” host Kevin O’Leary, did not disclose the financial terms of the offer.
Prelogar said an eventual sale of the platform, even after the ban kicks in, would allow TikTok to resume operations. The sale of Twitter to Elon Musk, who renamed it X, shows that the sale of a social media platform can happen quickly, she said.
That high-profile transaction went through in about six months from offer to completion, she said.
TikTok, meanwhile, has been “on notice” since 2020, during Trump's first term, that its sale could be required if it couldn’t satisfy the U.S. government’s national security concerns.
ByteDance has said it won’t sell the short-form video platform, and lawyers said a sale might never be possible under the conditions set in the law.
What apps could replace TikTok?
TikTok has more than 170 million users in the U.S., and if it does get banned, it’s not clear which competitors will benefit the most. Some experts think established social media platforms, such as Instagram and YouTube, could see the biggest influx of users. But some users are looking for something different and could turn to other apps.
Xiaohongshu, or “RedNote”
Recently, some U.S. TikTok users have flocked to the Chinese social media app Xiaohongshu in protest of the looming ban. Like TikTok, Xiaohongshu, which in English means “Little Red Book,” combines e-commerce and short-form videos.
The app has gained traction in China and other regions with a Chinese diaspora — such as Malaysia and Taiwan — racking up 300 million monthly active users, a majority of whom are young women who use it as a de-facto search engine for product, travel and restaurant recommendations, as well as makeup and skincare tutorials.
On Tuesday, the Xiaohongshu, called “RedNote” by American users and on some app stores, was the top downloaded free app in Apple’s U.S. app store.
Lemon8
Lemon8, also owned by TikTok’s parent company ByteDance, is a lesser-known lifestyle app that allows users to post pictures and short-form videos. Though the platform lets users post TikTok-like videos, it leans more into pictures and has been described as a mixture of Instagram and Pinterest.
In the past few weeks, many creators have hailed Lemon8 as the place to go if TikTok is banned under federal law. Some have also recommended it through paid sponsored posts tagged #lemon8partner, indicating a recent corporate push to generate more users.
But the law that targets TikTok also states the divest-or-ban requirement for ByteDance applies generally to apps that are owned or operated by the two companies or any of their subsidiaries. That means even though Lemon8 is not explicitly named in the statute, its future in the U.S. is also in jeopardy.
Meta's Instagram
Instagram launched Reels in 2020, a TikTok-like feed of short videos users can create or scroll through. The feature has proven to be massively popular and some experts say creators are likely to set up shop there if a TikTok ban does happen. As of 2022, Instagram had 2 billion active monthly users. Meta no longer discloses user numbers for its individual platforms.
But could it replace TikTok? That depends. While many creators currently post on both platforms, some experts say the youngest users are unlikely to migrate to a service made popular by their millennial parents. And while Meta’s algorithm is addictive, it’s still not TikTok.
In the past, some TikTok users have also blamed the surge of scrutiny on the platform on Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, pointing to a Washington Post report from 2022 that said the tech behemoth paid a Republican consulting firm to undermine TikTok through a nationwide media and lobbying campaign.
YouTube
Though TikTok dominates headlines as a driver of internet trends, Pew Research Center says YouTube is actually the most widely-used platform among teens and adults.
YouTube users can scroll through Shorts just as they can on TikTok or Reels on Instagram and Facebook, allowing them to watch hours of bite-sized videos. Many of the videos featured on YouTube are from TikTok or creators who post to several platforms. That said, YouTube is still known for its longer-format videos so it may not have the variety of content that TikTok users are looking for — at least not yet.
Snapchat
Snapchat, launched in 2011 with its infamous disappearing videos, remains popular among teens and younger adults. The platform gained so much traction that Meta designed a similar feature in Facebook and Instagram called “Stories” that lets users post photos or videos that disappear within 24 hours. In 2020, Snapchat launched another feature that lets users “shine a light on the most entertaining Snaps, no matter who created them.”
The platform is estimated to have roughly 692 million global monthly active users last year, according to eMarketer.
Twitch
For TikTok users who enjoy the “TikTok Live” feed that features livestreamed videos, Twitch could be a good alternative. The Amazon-owned platform is a leader in the streaming industry and allows users on the platform to watch some of the internet’s most popular streamers, such as Kai Cenat. Twitch says it has 105 million monthly visitors.
Clapper
Clapper, a TikTok clone, has also been gaining some traction amid the looming ban. The app was launched in 2020 by Dallas-based entrepreneur Edison Chen, and focuses on Gen X and millennial users. In September of that year, the company described itself in a Facebook post as a “free speech” platform that did not “censor posts and comments.” But in blog post on its website from 2021, the company wrote it “stopped being a ‘Free Speech’ platform” in September 2020 and “changed its mission and goals” to focus on “community”.
Other little-known apps
For TikTok users who want to get away from the overcrowded spots, there are lesser-known apps like Triller, which is popular for music videos, and Zigazoo, which was designed with kids in mind.
If none of these apps tickle your fancy, it's also possible that other platforms could emerge in the next few months as companies attempt to attract users looking for a new place to go.