WASHINGTON (TNND) — TikTok is quickly running out of time and options to stay operational in the US after a court ruling on Friday further minimized its chances of avoiding a ban expected to take effect next month, which could mean a change that could reshape the social media landscape.

A federal appeals court in Washington on Friday rejected TikTok’s request to strike down the law, setting off a potential showdown at the Supreme Court. TikTok filed a legal petition on Monday asking the court to put enforcement of the ban on hold until the Supreme Court can hear its case.

The popular short-video platform will be banned without legal intervention and will come into effect on January 19, a day before President-elect Donald Trump takes office. Trump has said he would like to “save” TikTok, but his path to doing so remains unclear, especially as the deadline approaches before he takes office.

President Joe Biden signed a law banning TikTok earlier this year amid growing national security concerns that Chinese parent company ByteDance could be forced by Beijing to hand over Americans’ data to Chinese intelligence agencies.

TikTok has denied sharing data with the Chinese government and insisted it would not comply with any requests to do so. But those assurances failed with the Biden administration and Congress, culminating in the president signing a law that led to an impending ban.

Their legal arguments focused on freedom of expression being violated by the forced removal, but have not yet convinced any court to side with them.

“The First Amendment is designed to protect free speech in the United States,” the appeals court opinion said. “Here, the government acted solely to protect that freedom from a foreign adversary nation and to limit that adversary’s ability to collect data about people in the United States.”

It is unclear whether the Supreme Court will decide to hear his case, but legal experts expect the Supreme Court to weigh in on the matter.

Despite the ongoing legal maneuvers, TikTok is running out of options to continue operating in the US. The Supreme Court could refuse to hear the case and rule against the company, leaving the only option open to remaining in the United States: finding an American investor to take it over.

TikTok and its parent company ByteDance have both said a sale is not feasible and there are just five weeks left to begin the divestiture process. The January 19 deadline could be extended if a sale were underway, but there are currently no known such discussions.

Even if the company were interested in selling, it’s unclear who would be able and willing to pay for the multibillion-dollar deal. Other large technology companies such as Google and Meta offer competing products and would face antitrust concerns if they were acquired, which would also apply to a hypothetical purchase by another large company such as Microsoft.

“There aren’t a lot of options unless the Supreme Court really does something unexpected and overturns this ban,” said Andrew Selepak, a social media expert who teaches at the University of Florida.

TikTok would not be deleted from devices on January 20, the day after the deadline, but would see a slow decline as the app stores hosting it would not allow it to release updates and bug fixes. Without ongoing maintenance, the app would perform worse over time and fewer people would interact with it. In its lawsuit filed Monday, TikTok said a month-long ban would cost the company a third of its daily users in the United States

What happens after TikTok is banned is a big question for the social media and its key players. Meta’s Reels and Google’s YouTube Shorts were created at least in part as competitors to TikTok, but they don’t have the same active user base or cultural standing. Both platforms will likely see some boost should the ban take effect, but whether either can become a dominant force like TikTok remains to be seen.

Both apps are also offshoots of the existing social media platforms YouTube and Instagram, to which social networks and different types of followers are connected. In contrast, TikTok’s powerful algorithm delivered an endless number of videos tailored to a user’s interests and did not require anyone to follow anyone or build a social network.

Unlike

“We had all these competitors from Twitter and no real TikTok competitor that came out of Silicon Valley. “It’s kind of mind-boggling that no one has really made a big effort to be the American alternative to going back to Vine like no one has?” Selepak said. “There is no other direct competitor. It’s just kind of amazing, whether it was Truth Social, Parler, Mastodon, BlueSky, Threads. Everyone has put so much effort, time and investment into a competitor and not this TikTok competitor.”