TikTok made a final attempt at the Supreme Court on Friday to stop a ban on the app that was set to take effect within days – but the platform’s arguments may have ended with a bang.

A majority of justices appeared inclined to uphold a federal law that would ban the company unless it separates from China-based parent company Bytedance.

TikTok has challenged the law on First Amendment grounds, claiming a ban would restrict free speech rights on a platform used by one in two Americans. However, lower courts have considered security concerns regarding possible data collection or content manipulation by the Chinese government to be justified.

If the court challenge fails and TikTok decides not to sell, the ban would take effect on January 19, a day before President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Experts who spoke to ABC News said that even after the ban goes into effect, the measure would not impose penalties on people who access or use the app.

Here’s what experts say you should know about exactly how the possible ban would work and how users could continue to access TikTok:

How exactly would the TikTok ban work?

The law that may ban TikTok – the Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act – cracks down on the app by targeting third-party companies that are crucial to the platform’s functioning.

Specifically, the law would restrict app stores and hosting companies that provide the digital infrastructure that web services like TikTok rely on.

Mandatory removal of the app from major app stores, such as those operated by Google and Apple, would prevent new users from downloading the app and prevent existing users from updating it.

Without updates, the app’s quality would degrade over time due to inconveniences such as video loading delays and performance degradation, some experts say.

“If the app couldn’t download updates, it would eventually become outdated,” Qi Liao, a computer science professor at Central Michigan University, told ABC News.

A separate provision would also make it illegal for hosting companies to provide services to TikTok — and the measure offers a fairly broad characterization of such companies.

Hosting companies “may include file hosting, domain name server hosting, cloud hosting and virtual private server hosting,” the law states.

Experts said TikTok would stop working if the company’s US-based hosting companies stopped providing services.

“In order for you to get TikTok content on your phone, someone has to host it,” said Timothy Edgar, a computer science professor at Brown University and a former national security official.

However, at least in theory, the social media giant could partner with hosting companies outside the US, thereby removing them from the reach of US law enforcement, the experts added.

Such a move would keep TikTok available to U.S. users, but the service would likely be slower and more buggy as the digital infrastructure moves further away, they added.

“The point of hosting content is to have it close to users,” Edgar said. “It certainly wouldn’t work smoothly.”

Faced with potential legal liability, TikTok will likely opt out of efforts to preserve its U.S.-based platform in a modified form, Edgar added. Instead, he said, services could simply grind to a halt, as happened in India immediately after the country’s ban in 2020.

“You get a message saying, ‘Oh, it looks like you’re using the app in the US. It is not available in your country,’” Edgar said.

TikTok did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment.

Would TikTok users be able to access the app again after the ban?

Regardless of the extent of possible service disruptions, users could still access TikTok after the ban using workarounds, experts said.

Users who do this will face technical hurdles and lower app quality, Liao said. For some this will probably prove to be a huge deterrent; but others may still search for TikTok.

“If they really want to use it, the user will find a way to use it,” Liao said.

Users who try it can be assured that the behavior is completely legal, experts say.

“If you’re a regular user with TikTok on your phone, you’re not a criminal,” Edgar said. “There is no penalty at all.”

ABC News’ Devin Dwyer contributed to this report.