TikTok, an app used by 19 million Americans, will shut down in the US on January 170

TikTok plans to shut down its app in the U.S. on Jan. 19, when a federal ban is set to go into effect. The app is used by 170 million Americans, writes Reuters.

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President-elect Donald Trump, whose term begins the day after the ban is expected to go into effect, is considering issuing an executive order to suspend enforcement of the ban for 60 to 90 days.

The law, signed in April, would ban new downloads of TikTok from Apple's (AAPL.O) or Google's (GOOGL.O) app stores unless Chinese parent company ByteDance sells the platform.

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Users who have already downloaded TikTok will theoretically be able to continue using the app. However, the law, effective January 19, prohibits American companies from providing services to distribute, support, or update the platform.

The president-elect's transition team has yet to comment on the situation. Trump said he needed time to find a "political solution" to the problem.

“TikTok itself is a fantastic platform,” Trump’s incoming national security adviser Mike Waltz said on January 15. “We’ll find a way to keep it going but protect people’s data.”

A White House official said President Joe Biden has no plans to block the ban in his final days in office unless the Supreme Court takes action, and noted that Biden is legally barred from intervening unless ByteDance has a compelling plan to sell TikTok.

U.S. Sen. Ed Markey asked the legislature on Jan. 15 to extend ByteDance's deadline to sell TikTok by 270 days, but Republican Tom Cotton blocked the proposal.

If TikTok is banned, users trying to open the app will see a pop-up message redirecting them to a website with information about the ban, said the person, who asked to remain anonymous because the matter is not public.

“We’re going into the dark. The platform is essentially shutting down,” TikTok attorney Noel Francisco told the Supreme Court last week.

The company plans to give users the option to download all their data so they can keep their personal information safe, sources said.

The U.S. Supreme Court is currently deciding whether to uphold the law that would block TikTok on Sunday, strike it down, or delay it to give it more time to make a decision. If TikTok is taken down in the U.S., it could become unavailable to users in other countries, too, because the platform relies on hundreds of U.S. companies to provide essential services.

TikTok says it needs a court order to avoid disrupting service for millions of users outside the U.S. The company stresses that a ban would render the app useless because data centers would likely stop storing TikTok data and code.

Closing the platform in the US helps avoid legal issues for the company's service providers and simplifies the possible restoration of work if the ban is lifted. At the same time, the company notes that it will be possible to resume work fairly quickly.

TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, is mostly owned by investors, with its employees and founders holding the remaining stakes. ByteDance employs more than 7000 people in the U.S.

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In April, President Joe Biden signed a law requiring ByteDance to sell its U.S. assets by January 19 or face a nationwide ban on TikTok. The Supreme Court is leaning toward upholding the law, despite calls from Donald Trump and some lawmakers to extend the deadline.

TikTok says the law violates the First Amendment, which protects free speech. The company says a third of its American users will stop using the app within a month if it is banned.

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