What happens if TikTok gets banned?

On January 19, TikTok will be banned in the US – unless the Supreme Court approves The last legal tender from The Chinese owner, ByteDance, said it was unconstitutional to do so.

But even if the nation’s highest judiciary agrees with lower courts — and Congress — that the platform is a threat to national security, will it stop Americans from using it?

Will there be ways to bypass the ban — or will President-elect Donald Trump find a way to stop a law he says he opposes, even if the courts uphold it?

And no matter what happens to TikTok, who will benefit from the cloud’s future uncertainty?

The most likely way for the US to ban TikTok is to make app stores like Google Play Store and Apple App Store unavailable for download in that region.

US lawmakers have already told tech companies to be ready to remove the app from their stores if the ban goes into effect.

That means people won’t be able to use legal means to access TikTok — although people who already have it will still have it on their phones.

Since the app is no longer publicly available, new updates cannot be made available to users in the US – making the app even more buggy and ultimately unusable.

Many updates are released to fix security holes in apps, so if TikTok stops getting updates, millions of devices could be targeted by hackers.

Of course, there are ways around such a ban.

Several videos are circulating on TikTok showing users how to use a VPN (virtual private network) – a method of pretending to be in another region.

The region of app stores can also be changed on most devices, so anyone can theoretically access apps from other countries – although this can cause other problems, not to mention violations of service agreements.

It is also possible to install applications downloaded from the Internet by modding a device – which may violate copyright laws – and with its own risks. However, the government has anticipated this so it has proposed to ban “Internet hosting services” from giving people access to the app.

So if the ban takes this form, it looks like those who decide to use Tik Tok after it goes live will be able to – but it won’t be the experience they’re used to.

There are still other avenues available to the government along the way – for example, India’s 2018 After banning TikTok in 2020, she ordered internet providers to block access to the app completely.

And even if people use a VPN, TikTok could theoretically look at the user’s device to determine if their mobile number starts with +1 and find out if it’s based in the US, and simply screen them as the app. It is not available in their country.

It remains to be seen whether TikTok will decide to help the government with its own ban, but Reuters reports that it plans to do so.

TikTok’s own lawyer told the Supreme Court that they believe the app will “go dark” in the United States unless it buys its profits.

The complexity of the case means that even the experts are unclear about what will happen next.

Milton L. Mueller, a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology who filed a legal brief in support of TikTok, said it was unclear how far the U.S. would extend its enforcement powers, but it was unclear what would happen technically if the ban went ahead. Difficult to determine.

But what is clear is the impact it will have on users and the Internet itself.

“It fully legalizes the fragmentation of the Internet within national or legal boundaries,” he said.

Trump has made it clear he does not want the law to take effect, asking the Supreme Court to delay its implementation while he seeks a “political solution.”

But if the justices uphold it, they don’t have the power to overturn the law, which will take effect the day after Trump returns to office.

But he could simply tell the Justice Department not to implement it.

The government will tell Apple and Google that they will not be penalized for continuing to allow access to TikTok, which means the law will remain in place, but essentially become more expensive.

Clearly, the companies may be uncomfortable with being told that it’s fine to break the law — because it requires them to accept the president’s promise that they won’t be punished.

TikTok says it has 170 million users who spend an average of 51 minutes a day on the app by 2024.

Take down or disable TikTok and it creates a huge opportunity for its big tech rivals, says Jasmine Inberg, an analyst at Insider Intelligence.

“Meta-owned Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts, owned by Google, are a very natural fit for displaced users, creators and advertisers,” she says.

Facebook can also benefit, although Menberg says it’s common to all meta platforms. The controversial policy will change A statement by CEO Mark Zuckerberg may undercut its appeal.

Users bring advertisers – so a ban could be a huge financial boost for those platforms.

The chief marketing officers we spoke to confirmed that they would shift their media dollars to Meta and Google if they couldn’t advertise on TikTok — the same behavior we saw in India banning TikTok in 2020,” said Forrester Principal Analyst Kelsey Chickering.

ByteDance-owned Lemon8 was an obvious place for people to follow the ban — but the law also applies to other apps owned or operated by the company. This means that Lemon 8 is probably going to be unavailable in the US.

Other winners include Twitch, which made its name hosting live streams — a popular feature on TikTok. While Twitch continues to grow with other content, it is particularly well known for gamers.

Other platforms owned by China; According to Xiaohongshu – known as RedNote among its US users – has seen rapid growth in the US and UK.

Still, some suggest that no existing app can truly replace TikTok, especially its TikTok Store feature, which allows users to buy products directly from videos and brings in tons of money for US creators.

Craig Atkinson, CEO of digital marketing agency Code3, says there is no direct competitor that people can easily switch to – and the agency is signing new contracts with clients to build TikTok shop campaigns until the end of December.

As of now, ByteDance has ruled out any sales of its prize fund in the US.

But could that change if it’s actually blocked — and when a president who prides himself on the “wisdom of the deal” returns to the White House?

Potential buyers continue to line up – with Bloomberg news report on Tuesday Although the company is looking at the sale of billionaire Elon Musk Tik Tok has defined this. As “pure fiction”.

Trump’s former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and billionaire businessman Frank McCourt are among those interested in buying it.

Mr. McCourt, the former owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team, said he had secured a $20 billion bid for TikTok from a consortium of investors.

There is a more left field – and much less serious – proposed owner.

The world’s largest YouTube user, MrBeast He says he is running to make a deal now. After finding billionaires about it.

Although it sounds like a joke, there is a huge financial incentive to try and put the app on – MrBeast has over 100 million followers on TikTok.