Can You Still Use TikTok if It’s Banned? What Users Should Know About the App.

The monthslong fight by legislators to ban the social media app TikTok in the United States is expected to come to a head on Friday when the Supreme Court hears arguments to decide the app’s fate for its 170 million American users.

If TikTok, owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, does get banned on Jan. 19, here is what users can expect to happen:

Will TikTok still be available to download on app stores?

No. The law passed by Congress last year would make it illegal for app stores from companies like Apple and Google to distribute or issue updates to TikTok at the risk of hefty civil penalties: $5,000 per American user, which could amount to hundreds of billions of dollars.

If TikTok is banned, it will likely disappear from app stores overnight. (Apple and Google have not commented on their plans to remove the app.)

Apple has long complied with foreign governments that have ordered apps to be removed in their countries. Last April, for instance, Apple pulled communication apps like WhatsApp, Signal, Threads and Telegram from its app store in China at the request of the Chinese government.

Will the TikTok app still be on my phone if I have already downloaded it?

Yes. The law does not make it illegal to have the TikTok app on your phone.

“The letter of the law is about future downloads and updates,” said Dean Ball, a research fellow with the Mercatus Center, a think tank out of George Mason University. “It’s not about taking the app off people’s phones.”

But without the ability for ByteDance to issue updates to TikTok via app stores, the app will likely degrade over time. Still, advertisers are anticipating some usage in the United States after the ban, and as of last month, new contracts to advertise on the app are still being signed, said Craig Atkinson, the chief executive of Code3, a digital marketing agency.