The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld a law banning TikTok nationwide unless its Chinese parent company ByteDance sells the platform by Sunday.
TikTok has challenged the law, saying it would violate free speech protections for the app’s more than 170 million users in the United States.
But that argument was rejected by the US Supreme Court, meaning TikTok must now find an approved buyer for the US version of the app or risk being removed from app stores and web hosting services.
However, the outgoing Biden administration and incoming President Donald Trump have been trying to seek a reprieve for the platform, with U.S. authorities warning it poses a national security risk.
Last year, both Democratic and Republican lawmakers voted to ban the video-sharing app over concerns about its ties to the Chinese government. TikTok has repeatedly said it does not share information with Beijing.
The law gives TikTok owner ByteDance until January 19 to sell the U.S. version of the platform to a neutral party to avoid an outright ban.
This means that starting Sunday, Apple and Google will no longer make the app available to new users, nor will it provide any security updates to existing users — which could ultimately lead to the app being deprecated.
The company vowed not to sell TikTok.