What happens if TikTok gets banned?

TikTok will be banned in the US on January 19 – unless the Supreme Court agrees last ditch legal bid from its Chinese owner, ByteDance, that it would be unconstitutional to do so.

But even if the nation’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 from using it?

Will there be ways around the ban — or can President-elect Donald Trump find a way to stop a law he says he opposed even if the courts uphold it.

And whatever happens to TikTok, which could benefit from the uncertainty clouding its future?

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 companies to be ready to remove the app from their stores if a ban goes into effect.

That would mean people could no longer use a legitimate means to access TikTok — though it would also mean people who already have it would still have it on their phones.

Because the app would no longer be publicly available, new updates could no longer be delivered to users in the US – which would make the app more buggy and ultimately unusable.

Not to mention that many updates are provided to fix app security holes, so if TikTok stopped getting updates that could present hackers with millions of devices to target.

Of course, there are ways to get around such a ban.

There are already many videos circulating on TikTok informing users how to use a VPN (virtual private network) – a way to make it appear as if you are in a different region.

The app store region 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 likely service agreement violations.

It is also possible to install apps downloaded from the internet by modifying a device – which can break copyright law – and comes with its own risks. But the government has also anticipated this, so it also proposes 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 determined to use TikTok after it goes into effect will be able to do so — but it won’t be the experience they is used to.

There are still other routes available to the government down the road — for example, after India banned TikTok in 2020, it ordered ISPs to block access to the app altogether.

And even if people were using a VPN, TikTok could theoretically look at a user’s device and identify if their mobile number starts with a +1, to see if they’re based in the US, and then simply present them with a screen that says the app is not available in their country.

It remains to be seen whether TikTok would decide to help the government with 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 problem means that even the experts are unclear about what happens next.

Professor Milton L. Mueller of the Georgia Institute of Technology — who filed a legal brief in support of TikTok — said a lack of clarity about how far the United States could extend its authority to enforce the law makes it possible to know what technically happens if a ban continues difficult to determine.

But he said it was clear what impact it would have on users and the Internet itself.

“It would completely legitimize the fragmentation of the Internet along national or jurisdictional borders,” he said.

Trump has been clear that he does not want the law to take effect, and has asked the Supreme Court to delay implementation while he seeks a “political solution.”

But should the justices uphold it, Trump does not have the power to overturn the law, which would take effect the day before he returns to office.

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

The government would effectively tell Apple and Google that they will not be penalized for continuing to allow access to TikTok, meaning the law would remain in place but would essentially be redundant.

Obviously, companies may be uncomfortable breaking the law, even if they’ve been told it’s okay — since that would actually require them to take the president’s word for it that they won’t be punished.

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

Ban TikTok or make it less useful, and it creates a huge opportunity for its big tech rivals, said Jasmine Enberg, an analyst at Insider Intelligence.

“Meta-owned Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts, owned by Google, are the most natural fits for displaced users, creators and advertisers,” she says.

Facebook could also benefit, although Ms Enberg says, in common with all Meta platforms, the controversial political changes announced by CEO Mark Zuckerberg could potentially diminish its appeal.

Users bring advertisers – so a ban could be a big financial boost for these platforms.

“Chief Marketing Officers we spoke to confirmed that they will redirect their media dollars to Meta and Google if they can no longer advertise on TikTok – this is the same behavior we saw in India when they banned TikTok in 2020,” said Forrester principal analyst Kelsey Chickering.

Lemon8, which is also owned by ByteDance, would have been an obvious place for people to go for a ban – but the law stipulates that it also applies to other apps owned or operated by the company. This means that Lemon8 will likely face being made unavailable in the US as well.

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

Other Chinese-owned platforms, such as 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 Shop feature, which lets users buy products directly from videos and makes a lot of money for American creators.

Craig Atkinson, CEO of digital marketing agency Code3, said there was no direct competitor that people could easily switch to – noting that his agency signed new contracts with clients to build TikTok Shop campaigns as recently as December.

Until now, ByteDance has been adamant that no sale of its premium asset in the US is on the table.

But could that change if it is actually banned—and when a president who prides himself on the “art of the deal” returns to the White House?

Potential buyers continue to line up – with That’s what Bloomberg News writes on Tuesday that the company was, however, looking at a sale to billionaire Elon Musk TikTok has since described this as “pure fiction”.

Trump’s former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and billionaire businessman Frank McCourt are among those who have previously expressed interest in buying it.

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

There is an even more left-wing – and considerably less serious – proposed owner.

The biggest YouTuber in the world MrBeast has claimed that he is now in the process of making a deal after he had billionaires contact him about it.

Although it may seem like a joke, he has a significant financial incentive to try to save the app – MrBeast has more than 100 million followers on TikTok.