Congress appears ready to pass a possible ban on TikTok in the United States. How would this work?

A possible ban on TikTok in the United States passed the House of Representatives over the weekend as part of a $95 billion foreign aid package that has garnered bipartisan support.

The social media crackdown could be close to becoming law, as President Joe Biden has pledged to sign it if it passes the Senate and reaches his desk.

​​The TikTok measure could still be removed from the foreign aid legislation in the Senate, but that would require the entire package to be sent back to the House for another vote – just as lawmakers on both sides of the The aisle stressed the urgency of acting on the additional money intended for Ukraine and Israel.

If passed, the measure would force the sale of the popular social media app by its Chinese parent company, ByteDance. In the absence of sale, the application would be prohibited.

TikTok did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment. In a previous statement, TikTok criticized renewed divestment efforts.

“It is regrettable that the House of Representatives is using the guise of significant foreign and humanitarian aid to once again pass a ban bill that would trample the free speech rights of 170 million Americans , would devastate 7 million businesses and shut down a platform that contributes $24 billion per year to the American economy,” the platform said.

Here’s what you need to know about whether the ban will ever go into effect, what it means for users, and how people can seek to get around it:

Will TikTok finally be banned?

Even if the measure becomes law, TikTok could still avoid a ban.

ByteDance could choose to sell TikTok, ensuring the app’s continued availability to US users. The bill passed in the House gives ByteDance nine months to sell, with the possibility of a three-month extension.

Regardless of a possible sale, the measure would likely draw a legal challenge on First Amendment grounds, which could overturn the law altogether, experts say.

TikTok and its users could challenge the law as a violation of constitutionally protected free speech, Anupam Chander, a law and technology professor at Georgetown University, previously told ABC News. If opposed, the U.S. government would likely argue that national security concerns should trump First Amendment protections, Chander said.

Last May, TikTok sued Montana in federal court over a state-enacted ban on the app, claiming the law violated users’ First Amendment rights. A few months later, in November, a federal judge ruled in favor of TikTok and blocked the law before it took effect.

However, the measure passed in Montana could offer little insight into the legal outcome of a federal ban, Sarah Kreps, director of the Tech Policy Institute at Cornell University, told ABC News. In Montana, lawmakers banned TikTok over concerns about privacy and child safety, while federal law relies on national security considerations.

“It’s apples and oranges,” Kreps said.

Nonetheless, if the United States passes a law banning TikTok, a federal judge could order a temporary pause while the legal challenge works its way through the court system due to the broad ramifications of such a measure.

How would a possible ban work?

The measure would ban TikTok by removing it from U.S. app stores, including popular platforms on iPhone and Android.

New customers would be unable to download the app, while current users would lose access to vital updates, experts told ABC News.

“Users can still keep the app on their mobile devices, but they won’t be able to get updates and it will eventually become obsolete,” Qi Liao, a computer science professor at Central Michigan University, told ABC News .

Users may be able to use the app for up to a year after the ban takes effect, Liao added, but the app would deteriorate and eventually become unusable.

The app’s potential decline, Kreps said, would amount to a “slow fizzle.”

“The reasons people wanted to use TikTok are that it’s easy, it’s fun, and it has a nice user interface,” Kreps added. “Without updates over time, it wouldn’t have the same qualities that users appreciate.”

Will users find ways to circumvent the ban?

Some users would likely be able to circumvent the ban, but that would prove too difficult or impractical for many, experts said.

“For the majority of people, this will cause a lot of problems,” Liao said. “For someone who is tech savvy and motivated, they can do it.”

For example, individuals could proceed to install apps offline that bypass the App Store, Liao said. To do this, he added, an individual can download an installation package from the Internet, move it to a USB drive and transfer it to their phone.

Individuals could also use a virtual private network, or VPN, which allows them to pose as a user connecting from a location abroad, thereby circumventing the specific ban in the United States, experts said.

Some users would circumvent the ban, but over time the difficulty and inconvenience would likely lead them to switch to a competing service, Kreps said.

“It’s not going to be an on/off switch,” she added. “But people will prefer the path of least resistance.”

ABC News’ Lauren Peller, Alex Ederson and Jay O’Brien contributed to this report.