The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday upheld a law that could have resulted in TikTok being banned in the United States on Sunday.

“There is no question that for more than 170 million Americans, TikTok provides a unique and broad source of expression, participation, and community,” the court’s unanimous opinion reads. “But Congress has determined that divestiture is necessary to address its national security concerns about TikTok’s data collection practices and relationships with foreign adversaries, and that concern is well supported.”

TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the company recently said it would shut down the app on Sunday, the deadline for the extension.

For more than five years, U.S. government officials have sought to ban or force the sale of TikTok, accusing the Chinese-owned company of sharing U.S. user data with the Chinese government and flooding information streams with pro-China propaganda. Congress and agencies like the FBI haven't provided the public with much information to substantiate the accusations, but have taken various approaches to banning TikTok.

In 2020, former President Donald Trump first tried to ban TikTok through an executive order that failed. Ultimately, President Joe Biden signed a bill on April 24, 2024, requiring TikTok's parent company ByteDance to sell the app to a U.S. owner by January 19 or else remove it from U.S. app stores Delete in. To avoid the ban, TikTok and a group of creators quickly filed a lawsuit against the Department of Justice, arguing that the Protecting Americans from Apps Controlled by Foreign Adversaries Act violated their First Amendment rights.

During oral arguments Friday, TikTok attorneys Noel Francisco and Jeffrey Fisher, who represent the creator, tried to make that argument clear. For the government, Deputy Attorney General Elizabeth Prelogar argued that the law did not violate the defendants' free speech rights but rather severed the app from ByteDance and China's influence.

"There is no doubt that the remedy chosen by Congress and the President here is dramatic," Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in the unanimous opinion. "I don't know if this law will be successful in achieving its purpose. A determined foreign adversary may simply seek to replace one lost surveillance application with another. As time passes and the threat evolves, that may Less dramatic but more effective solutions emerge.”

As long as ByteDance is close to being sold, the law allows Biden to extend the Jan. 19 deadline for another 90 days. As of Wednesday, the Biden administration was reportedly looking at ways to save the app but had yet to reveal anything publicly. The White House did not immediately respond to WIRED's request for comment on Friday. A number of US financiers have lined up to buy the app, including former Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt. Kevin O'Leary or Mr. Wonderful Shark Tank Notorious enough to have signed on to McCourt's proposal and recently met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago.

"We have made a formal offer to ByteDance. We are prepared to work with the company and President Trump to complete the transaction. Together we can transform TikTok into a clean technology stack and turn this national security issue into a major issue for Americans." Victory," McCourt said in a statement Friday in response to the decision.