The Supreme Court engaged in a session lasting two and a half hours on Friday to consider the potential ban of TikTok in the United States, with a decision expected in less than a week. By the conclusion of the arguments, the justices seemed inclined to permit the U.S. government to compel TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to either divest the platform or cease operations. 

Last spring, President Joe Biden enacted legislation mandating that ByteDance either sell TikTok or face a nationwide prohibition, citing national security concerns. The social media company seeks to delay the enforcement of this law, set for January 19, arguing that it infringes upon the First Amendment rights regarding free speech.

 Should the proposed ban take effect on Sunday, both Apple and Google would be prohibited from making TikTok available for download to new users; however, current users would maintain access to the application. Nevertheless, both the U.S. government and TikTok concur that the app’s functionality would deteriorate over time, as the absence of support services would render it increasingly unusable.