The potential ways to keep using TikTok if it’s banned
Odds are that if the Supreme Court declares the TikTok law constitutional and if a ban goes into effect, blacklisting the app from the Apple and Google app stores will be enough to stop most people from using TikTok.
But for people dedicated to TikTok, the law and technology would allow for ways to keep using it, including options like those listed below. (TikTok didn’t respond to a request for comment.)
• Keep using the app that’s already on your phone. If a ban goes into effect and Apple and Google block TikTok from pushing updates to the app on your phone, it may become buggy or broken over time.
But no one is quite sure how long it would take for the TikTok app to become unusable or compromised in this situation.
• Use a VPN. A virtual private network, or VPN, is software that can make it appear as though you’re surfing The Washington Post website from Stockholm when you’re really in Sioux Falls.
When the social media site X was (briefly) banned by Brazil’s government last year, sign-ups to Proton VPN surged 1,200 percent in the country in a single day, the Swiss email and VPN company said at the time.
Antonio Cesarano, product lead for Proton VPN, said this week that he believed — though he wasn’t positive — that Americans could use VPNs to access TikTok if it’s banned.
• Download the TikTok app outside the app stores. It’s not easy, but it is possible in some cases to download smartphone apps from places other than the Apple and Google app stores. Those methods could become a model for TikTok if a ban goes into effect.
The Fortnite mobile video games have been blacklisted since 2020 from the Apple and Google app stores because of a business dispute. But this past summer, Fortnite owner Epic Games made its games available from an app that you can download from the Epic Games website to Android phones globally and to iPhones in the European Union.
About six weeks later, Epic Games said there were more than 10 million downloads of the app outside the Apple and Google app stores.
Epic Games declined to give an updated figure for its app downloads.
• Use TikTok’s website instead of its app: TikTok was designed to be used as an app, but you can still watch videos from TikTok.com on your mobile browser or from a computer.
Assuming internet providers and mobile carriers don’t block TikTok’s website in the United States, TikTok could make its website more of a full-featured alternative to its app.