TikTok will shut down in the United States on Sunday when a deadline expires for the platform’s Chinese owner ByteDance to divest ownership or cease operations.

Beijing-based ByteDance was given an ultimatum in April when U.S. President Joe Biden signed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversaries Controlled Applications Act (PAFACA) into law.

As the ban looms, U.S. officials have indicated possible reprieves for the app, which is used by 170 million Americans.

Separately, a legal case is pending before the Supreme Court in which TikTok is challenging the ban on the grounds that it infringes on free speech.

In addition to the ban’s impact on millions of users, TikTok’s fate is also being closely watched because it could set the stage for how the U.S. deals with other apps owned by China and other foreign adversaries, such as CapCut, Xiaohongshu, Lemon8, Alipay precedent. and WeChat.

What will happen on Sunday if the ban continues?

If nothing changes over the weekend, TikTok will be removed from U.S. app stores on Sunday, and U.S. technology companies will be banned from hosting, distributing, maintaining or updating the app.

Over time, the lack of updates will make the app unusable for existing users.

Sources told the outlet that users trying to access TikTok starting Sunday will be directed to a website about the ban and how to download personal data.

TikTok did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.

Officials in both the Biden administration and President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration pledged to “rescue” the app on the campaign trail and said they were working to find a way to prevent the app from being hacked.

“Americans should not expect to see TikTok suddenly banned on Sunday,” an unnamed member of Biden’s team told CNBC this week.

Trump’s incoming national security adviser, Mike Waltz, told Fox News this week that the new administration would “find a way to keep (TikTok) but protect people’s data.”

In another positive sign from the Trump team, TikTok CEO Shou Chew is scheduled to attend the president-elect’s inauguration on Monday.

What could the White House do to stop or delay a TikTok ban?

Under the terms of PAFACA, the US president can grant a 90-day extension if “significant progress” is made in finding a new buyer for TikTok.

According to US media reports, Trump is also considering issuing an executive order to prevent the app from being shut down.

Anupam Chander, a professor of law and technology at Georgetown University, said the signs are that the TikTok saga may not come to a conclusion this weekend.

“President-elect Trump asked the Supreme Court to slow down the proceedings to give him time to find another solution,” Chand told Al Jazeera.

“When he becomes president, he may also be able to persuade Congress to change the law, and may even negotiate a sale of TikTok, or exercise other powers.”

Why are U.S. lawmakers so worried about TikTok?

Washington claims the app poses a national security risk because Beijing could use it to spy on millions of Americans and spread propaganda.

While TikTok owner ByteDance is a private company, the Chinese government exerts a degree of influence over its domestic technology industry not found in the West.

To appease U.S. lawmakers, ByteDance partnered with U.S. technology company Oracle in 2022 to route traffic through its infrastructure and store data on U.S. servers.

The move ultimately did little to appease Congress, which voted overwhelmingly bipartisan in support of the ban.

Claire Chu, senior China analyst at Janes & Co. in Washington, D.C., said governments including Beijing rely on social media to understand public sentiment at home and abroad.

“There is definitely this element of surveillance in social media apps and internet usage. It’s not just censorship,” Zhu told Al Jazeera.

“It’s also a broader collection of information, not just metadata, but real insights and trends, and … patterns of life, vulnerabilities and opportunities.”

What about TikTok’s legal action over the ban?

On January 10, the Supreme Court heard arguments in the case.

Although the court has yet to rule, a majority of the justices said they were skeptical of TikTok’s argument that the ban violated Americans’ rights to free speech.

However, human rights groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) argue that the ban is inconsistent with free speech and distracts from legislation to protect Americans’ personal data.

Foreign adversaries can obtain information on Americans simply by purchasing it from data brokers on the open market, said David Greene, EFF’s director of civil liberties.

“Because Congress has failed to enact comprehensive consumer privacy legislation, companies around the world are free to harvest Americans’ data, store it forever, and then monetize it through ever-expanding uses and sales,” Greene told Al Jazeera.

“Banning or mandating the sale of a social media app actually does nothing to protect Americans’ data privacy from other countries,” he added.