How the US TikTok Ban Would Actually Work

The law says it would be “illegal” for companies to “distribute, maintain or update” or “provide services” to the app, including the source code that allows it to run as it is now. This distribution, maintenance or update may occur, the law says, through mobile app stores that can be accessed in the United States or “provides Internet hosting services”.

“The law really deliberately avoided saying it was illegal to have apps on your phone,” said Milton Mueller, professor and co-founder of the Internet Governance Project at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Amicus brief in the Supreme Court opposes the ban. “Their effort is that nobody new can download it from the Apple or Google stores, and people who have it can’t update through those stores,” Muller said. “There’s nothing in the law that says ‘You must block US users on TikTok,’ which again is interesting.”

If TikTok is removed from Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store in the US, it won’t be possible to directly install new updates that add new features, fix bugs in the code, or fix security flaws. Over time, this means TikTok will stop working properly. Apple did not respond to WIRED’s request for comment, while Google declined to comment on what it will do when the law takes effect.

The other focus of the law is to prevent “hosting” companies from providing services on TikTok—and the definition is quite broad. Hosting companies “may include file hosting, domain name server hosting, cloud hosting and virtual private server hosting,” the law says. Since the summer of 2022, the company has been on the hook as TikTok faces pressure over its Chinese ownership US user data hosted within Oracle’s cloud services. Oracle also did not respond to WIRED’s request for comment.

However, other systems such as content delivery networks, advertising networks, payment providers and more are used as part of TikTok’s infrastructure. The law does not specifically mention these services, but different legal readings may call into question whether they help “maintain” or “distribute” TikTok’s fully functional service.

Hall says a recent test of TikTok’s website showed 185 embedded domains on the page. “They pull code, content from that array of third-party providers, and even their own domains,” he says. “Apps will start to decay and rot because either services stop working, things like content delivery networks or services that feel they can’t risk the ambiguous nature of the language or potential enforcement by the incoming administration.”

There is one Internet infrastructure player that sanctions don’t particularly press: Internet service providers. Countries like Russia and China have developed censorship systems that allow them to block entire websites from being accessed by web browsers. Mueller believes the omission by US lawmakers was likely intentional, as it avoids deploying a Chinese-style internet firewall. “They knew that a system of ISP-based blocking and filtering would clearly be a form of First Amendment restriction,” he says.

Avoiding a TikTok ban

While TikTok’s service in the US will likely deteriorate over time, there are some potential ways around any ban – for individuals and potentially companies as well. How effective these measures will be depends on how motivated people are to continue using TikTok and what the company decides to do.

“TikTok has 170 million users,” said Alan Rosenstein, an associate professor of law at the University of Minnesota, who supports the law but says it’s “the best of a bunch of bad options” regarding TikTok. “This law will not prevent everyone from accessing TikTok. I don’t think that was the intent of the law. The law is to make it meaningfully difficult to access TikTok.”