“Our position on this has been clear: TikTok should continue to operate under American ownership. Given the timing of when it goes into effect over a holiday weekend a day before inauguration, it will be up to the next administration to implement,” read the statement.

Whether or not the ban holds for very long, the many unique communities on the platform will inevitably scatter across myriad smaller apps — and many will disappear altogether.

The Supreme Court ruled on Friday, Jan. 17, to uphold a law that would ban the app for the 170 million people who use the app in the U.S. The ruling lines up with decisions other courts have made and sets up the ban to go into effect on Sunday, Jan. 19.

The platform is in need of saving in the United States, where approximately 170 million people have TikTok accounts. On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a federal law that will ban the platform on Jan. 19 unless TikTok’s China-based owner ByteDance divests its U.S. operations.

There are the TikTok creators who fear losing their audiences and have been frantically trying to persuade their fans to follow them on Instagram and YouTube, and the e-commerce brands and drop-shippers that are going to have to find other places to sell their stuff.

A law that could ban TikTok in the U.S. is set to take effect on Jan. 19. Here's what that would mean for users of the social media platform.

Unless TikTok’s China-based parent company, ByteDance, sells the app into new ownership, TikTok will be removed from Apple and Google app stores on Sunday, Jan. 19, reports CNN. The app will still be accessible on phones that have it previously downloaded, but it will not be able to update.

John O’Sullivan was surrounded by studio lights, a gigantic screen and professional cameras. Producers fiddled with them, giving him just a minute before filming. But a minute is all O’Sullivan needs.

At the time, India was TikTok’s biggest foreign market outside of China, with 200 million users. (For comparison, the U.S. currently has over 170 million TikTok users.) Following military clashes along the disputed border between India and China,

President-elect Donald Trump says he "most likely" will give TikTok 90 more days to work out a deal that would allow the popular video-sharing platform to avoid a U.S. ban.