TikTok will go dark in the United States on Sunday unless the White House provides assurances to other social media platforms, the company said late on Friday.
The company said the only way to prevent it from being switched off was for president Joe Biden’s administration to provide assurances to companies like Apple and Google that they will not face enforcement actions when a ban takes effect.
The statement came hours after the Supreme Court upheld a law banning TikTok on national security grounds if its Chinese parent company ByteDance does not sell it, putting the popular short-video app on track to be blocked from its 170 million American users.
The court’s 9-0 decision throws the social media platform into limbo, and its fate in the hands of Donald Trump, who has vowed to rescue TikTok after returning to the White House on Monday.
“Unless the Biden Administration immediately provides a definitive statement to satisfy the most critical service providers assuring non-enforcement, unfortunately TikTok will be forced to go dark on January 19,” the company said.
The White House declined to comment.
Apple, Alphabet’s Google, Oracle and others could face massive fines if they continue to provide services to TikTok after the ban takes effect.
The law was passed by an overwhelming bipartisan majority in Congress last year and signed by Biden, though a growing chorus of lawmakers who voted for it are now seeking to keep TikTok operating in the United States.
TikTok, ByteDance and some of the app’s users challenged the law, but the Supreme Court decided that it did not violate the US Constitution’s First Amendment protection against government abridgment of free speech as they had argued.
ByteDance has done little to divest of TikTok by the Sunday deadline set under the law.
But the app’s shutdown might be brief. Trump, who in 2020 had tried to ban TikTok, has said he plans to take action to save the app.
“My decision on TikTok will be made in the not too distant future, but I must have time to review the situation. Stay tuned!” Trump said in a social media post.
Shou Zi Chew, the CEO of TikTok, plans to attend Trump’s second inauguration on Monday in Washington.