NASSAU, BAHAMAS – The Supreme Court has upheld a law that will ban TikTok in the US unless its China-based parent company ByteDance sells the platform by 19 January.
ByteDance challenged the law and argued it violates free speech protections for the app’s more than 170 million users in the United States alone.
US officials and lawmakers have accused ByteDance of being linked to the Chinese government and have raised national security concerns over TikTok.
Should the ban go into effect, American users will no longer be able to download the app on their smart devices however, those who have previously downloaded the app would still be able to access it for a period of time according to BBC News.
“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.”
Users in The Bahamas will still be able to use the app but will likely not be able to use the app to watch US based content after some time.
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