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Ban targets U.S.-based partners to block TikTok access

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App stores barred from distributing TikTok updates

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VPNs and geolocation data complicate user workarounds

By Stephen Nellis, Max A. Cherney

Jan 16 (Reuters) -

Social media app TikTok, which is owned by China's

ByteDance, will be banned in the United States on Sunday unless

a deal comes together to sell it to a U.S. investor or the U.S.

Supreme Court intervenes.

The ban results from an April law signed by President Joe Biden

and is the first time the United States has attempted to shut

down access to an app with such a large user base - roughly 170

million domestic users.

To pull it off, the law targets a wide swath of U.S.-based

partners that help bring TikTok to users, rendering most easy

workarounds such as using a virtual private network or changing

a phone's country settings moot or difficult to use, experts

told Reuters.

At best, users might be able to access a web-based version

of the service that has fewer features than the app, and even

that might not work, experts said.

Here's a closer look at how the ban will be implemented.

APP 'ROTS'

The law will not force users to delete the app. But TikTok

plans to shut down the service and will show users a message

about the law and offer to let them download their personal

data, Reuters previously reported.

Even if TikTok was not planning a formal shutdown, the app

would not work as well as it did before. App store providers are

explicitly barred from distributing TikTok to U.S. users, which

means that Apple ( AAPL ) and Alphabet's Google will

remove the app from their stores and will no longer distribute

updates to fix bugs.

The TikTok app also relies on a constant flow of new videos,

which would become nearly impossible to deliver. TikTok data for

U.S. users is hosted and processed on servers owned by Oracle

, which most experts believe Oracle would have to cease

those operations.

Oracle, Apple ( AAPL ), Google and TikTok all either declined to

comment or did not return requests for comment.

Beyond that, analyses have shown that more than 100 other

service providers, such as content delivery networks, help make

TikTok operate smoothly.

"Some subset of that stuff that is required for the app to

actually work, both in terms of getting video to you, but also

in terms of getting video and content up," said Joseph Lorenzo

Hall, a distinguished technologist with nonprofit group Internet

Society. "And so uploading might be one of the first things to

go. Americans may only be able to watch as their app rots."

The disengagement of those service providers could also affect

tens of millions of TikTok users outside the U.S., but company

engineers are working to address those issues, sources told

Reuters.

TWO PHONES AND A TRIP TO TORONTO?

The most straightforward workaround to keep access to TikTok

would be to use a virtual private network, or VPN, which can

conceal the internet protocol, or IP, address of a user and

thereby their location.

But TikTok has other means of knowing where the user is

located, such as geolocation data from a phone, said Jason

Kelley, director of activism for the Electronic Frontier

Foundation.

Users could try to access a web-based version of TikTok via a

browser while using a VPN, but the web version lacks many

features of the app and - if the user has to create a new

account - would not be as personalized to the user's

preferences.

"It won't be a good service for you, and it won't be a

profitable service for them," Kelley said.

Some users have discussed steps such as switching an

iPhone's country settings to another country in a bid to keep

using the app. But that would require cancelling existing app

subscriptions and setting up a new payment method for that

country, according to Apple ( AAPL ) documentation.

It is enough of a hassle that it may be easier to purchase a

separate phone dedicated to the app, leading Hall to joke that

the law could result in "Congress forcing the influencer

population to carry two phones, just like most of them do."

But even switching an iPhone's settings to a different

country is not a straightforward fix. The law bars Apple ( AAPL ) and

other app store providers from delivering the TikTok app to

users in the United States regardless of how their devices are

configured, so a user would still have to leave the United

States to download TikTok.