TikTok is reportedly planning a total shutdown of the Chinese-owned video-sharing app when the law requiring a ban or sale of the video-sharing app takes effect on Sunday.
The roughly 170 million US users who try to access the app will be greeted with a pop-up message directed them to a website with details about the ban, according to The Information.
Users will also be given the option of downloading their data from the app, sources familiar with the plan told outlet.
The company’s plan goes beyond the scope of the law, which requires app store operators like Google and Apple to stop allowing downloads of TikTok, but allows users who already have the app on their phones to keep using it.
TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Members of Congress and the Justice Department allege that TikTok, which is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, poses an unacceptable national security threat – capable of secretly manipulating content via its recommendation algorithm and mass data collection such as location-tracking, among other risks.
TikTok has denied the allegations.
The Supreme Court could still decide to block the divestment law ahead of Sunday’s deadline, though it does not seem inclined to do so. During oral arguments on TikTok’s appeal last week, all nine justices indicated that the national security concerns that led President Joe Biden to sign the law outweighed potential risks to free speech.
President-elect Trump – who returns to the White House on Monday — was once a staunch critic of TikTok but has lately signaled that he is opposed to the ban. His legal team has asked the Supreme Court to halt the ban from taking effect so that he can pursue a political solution.
Trump met with TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida last month.
The divestment bill passed Congress with overwhelming bipartisan support and was signed into law last April. It gives ByteDance 120 days to sell the app.
TikTok has argued that new law is a de facto ban that violates the First Amendment. The company also claims it couldn’t have sold the app within the bill’s 120-day timeline.
Earlier this week, Bloomberg reported that Chinese officials were considering the possibility of selling the TikTok brand to Elon Musk – who already owns the social media platform X and who leads Tesla, which has extensive operations in China.
TikTok representatives dismissed that report as “pure fiction.”
Other potential TikTok suitors included Trump’s former Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and billionaire Frank McCourt, who has partnered with “Shark Tank” star Kevin O’Leary in an effort to buy the brand and rebuild its algorithm from scratch on US soil.
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