Washington — The Supreme Court on Friday upheld a new law that would lead to a ban of the social media platform TikTok, clearing the way for the widely popular app to shutter in the U.S. as soon as Sunday.

Starting Sunday, if the company is not sold, app stores and cloud providers who continue to host it will face billions of dollars in fines.

If the app is not sold by Sunday, TikTok plans to "go dark," Noel Francisco, an attorney for the company, said during oral arguments. “Essentially, the platform shuts down,” Francisco said.

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew thanked Donald Trump for his commitment to "finding a solution" that keeps TikTok available in the U.S. after the ruling.

The U.S. Supreme Court is viewed as open to upholding a national-security law that will shut down the video-sharing app nationwide on Sunday if it continues to be controlled by its Chinese parent company.

TikTok isn’t the villain here. It’s a symptom of a much larger issue: the lack of clear, enforceable rules for data privacy and security. Instead of banning the app, the government should focus on fixing the system.

The first, Noel J. Francisco, who represents ByteDance, is a prominent conservative litigator who is now a partner at the Jones Day law firm. A graduate of the University of Chicago Law School, Mr. Francisco clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia and served in the White House and the Justice Department in the George W. Bush administration.

There are a lot of lingering questions about how the ban would work in practice because there’s no precedent for the US government blocking such a major social media platform. But some things are clear,

During the trial last Friday, TikTok lawyer Noel Francisco warned SCOTUS that upholding the Biden administration's divest-or-sell law would likely cause TikTok to “go dark—essentially the ...

TikTok called that a "massive, unprecedented restriction" on free speech. "One of America's most popular speech platforms will shut down in nine days," Noel Francisco, an attorney for TikTok who ...

The Supreme Court appeared to lean towards upholding a law that requires TikTok to be divested from Chinese parent ByteDance (BDNCE) by January 19 or face a U.S. ban, following over two hours of oral arguments in a closely-watched hearing last Friday.

The TikTok situation highlights the complexity of enforcing regulation compliance on digital platforms supported by companies with global reach and operations. The outcome of TikTok's legal battles will influence future cases involving data privacy, national security and foreign ownership of digital platforms.