The Supreme Court backs TikTok's ban. What comes next?

Today, the US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) unanimously voted to uphold a law banning TikTok in the US.

The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act (PAFACA), a bill signed into law in April 2024, is behind the app’s banishment from the US. As a result, TikTok and the US Justice Department argued their cases before the Court.

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TikTok argued that banning the app under PAFACA violates the US Constitution, specifically the First Amendment, while the Justice Department argued that the app poses a national security threat.

The US government claims TikTok poses a national security threat mainly because TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, is based in China. Over the years, the US asserted that the Chinese government may have access to US citizens’ TikTok user data or influence ByteDance to manipulate TikTok’s algorithm to spread harmful propaganda to US users.

PAFACA granted the US government the authority to ban foreign apps in the US. The law’s passing gave TikTok 270 days to sell the company to a US company or risk banishment.

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Selling TikTok to a US company would require the Chinese government’s approval, and China has maintained that TikTok is not on the market.

Although the Court ruled in favor of the Biden administration, it does not plan to enforce the law and will allow the incoming administration to determine the app’s fate.

If the Trump administration enforces the ban, which is unlikely based on the president-elect’s previous statements, US users will lose access to TikTok on digital app marketplaces and will no longer receive software updates for the app. Without regular software updates, the app will become buggy, slow, insecure, and eventually useless.

The law will not apply to individual citizens, meaning users will not face legal consequences for having the app on their phone or accessing it after the ban.