At least two dozen states and a number of universities have banned TikTok, with more considering similar restrictions on the short-form social media app. A bipartisan coalition in Congress, meanwhile, is pushing for an outright ban on the app in the U.S. over concerns the Chinese government could force the app’s Beijing-based parent company ByteDance to surveil Americans. 

But banning the app may be much harder than simply pulling the plug on its servers, according to legal scholars and experts on the topic. 

“Congress can make a law on anything they want, and it could pass. But it also will be constitutionally challenged,” Ashley Nelson, senior professor of practice at Tulane University’s Freeman School of Business told Yahoo Finance. 

“Whatever happens, I foresee a challenge probably going all the way up to the Supreme Court. The bottom line is, I don’t see how the government can actually get away with banning all of TikTok from everyone.” 

That’s because the Constitution protects Americans from government-imposed restrictions on speech wherever that speech might take place. 

“It’s going to be really difficult for the government to enact a total ban constitutionally,” David Greene, civil liberties director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told Yahoo Finance. “And that’s even assuming that they can show that…there’s some proof that the ban will actually help in some way.” 

TikTok a target.

TikTok has roughly 100 million U.S. users. The app is most popular among younger users, with 67% of teens saying they use the app, according to a Pew Research Center survey. That’s more than Meta’s Facebook, 32%, and Instagram, 62%. 

The app’s popularity and swift growth among teens has raised concerns in Washington and across the country that the app could be used as a means to track and gather information on users or spread Chinese Communist Party propaganda. 

TikTok has denied allegations that it is a mouthpiece for China’s leadership and opened offices in the U.S. In June, the company announced that it finished moving Americans’ user data off of its own servers and onto Silicon Valley–based Oracle’s cloud platform. 

Still, U.S. officials aren’t convinced. In December, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) introduced legislation to ban TikTok in the U.S., which gained the support of Republicans and Democrats in the House. 

Adding to the drama, in late December, The New York Times reported that ByteDance employees accessed the data of a handful of U.S. users and two journalists including location information. The employees, ByteDance said, inappropriately accessed the data during an internal investigation into leaks. ByteDance fired the workers involved in the matter. 

Free speech laws could prevent a total ban.

That’s pushed more states and even universities to ban TikTok. But those restrictions only apply to the use of the app on government and university devices and networks. In other words, there’s nothing stopping employees and students from checking out the latest TikTok trend on their personal phones and networks. 

President Joe Biden has also come out against TikTok. And while the administration is negotiating with TikTok to quell any fears that China could abuse the app to gain information on Americans or spread disinformation, others are calling on Biden to take executive action. That, though, is unlikely to pass muster, either.