The U.S. Supreme Court will review a law that requires TikTok parent ByteDance Ltd. to sell the app or face a ban.

The Justices will hear oral arguments in the case on Jan. 10, according to an order released today. The legislation requiring ByteDance to offload TikTok or face a ban is set to take into effect on Jan. 19.

The law in question, the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, was passed in April over national security concerns about TikTok. It gives ByteDance nine months to find a buyer for the popular service. The law allows for a 90-day extension if there’s “evidence of significant progress toward” a sale. 

If ByteDance fails to sell TikTok, the service will effectively be banned. Companies such as Google LLC and Apple Inc. would be required to remove TikTok from their app stores. Furthermore, the law would prohibit data center operators from hosting the service.

A few years earlier, TikTok attempted to stave off the legislation with an initiative called Project Texas. The $1.5 billion project was meant to move U.S. users’ information to stateside data centers. The initiative stalled in mid-2022. 

TikTok challenged the law in court a few weeks after it passed. In its filings, the company has argued that the legislation would have a negative impact on free speech. Additionally, TikTok claims that a sale is impractical because the buyer would be required to rebuild the algorithm it uses to recommend content for users.

Earlier this month, TikTok’s legal effort suffered a setback. A three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia dismissed its bid to overturn the law. The judges found that the U.S. government has “offered persuasive evidence demonstrating that the act is narrowly tailored to protect national security.”

The following week, the judges rebuffed a request from TikTok to pause the law until a Supreme Court review. TikTok filed its request for the review a few days later. “Congress’s unprecedented attempt to single out applicants and bar them from operating one of the most significant speech platforms in this nation presents grave constitutional problems that this court likely will not allow to stand,” TikTok stated in the petition.

In today’s announcement of the upcoming hearing, the Supreme Court informed TikTok that it should prepare arguments on whether the law violates the First Amendment. The court didn’t grant the company a temporary injunction it had requested to delay the implementation of the law. 

“We’re pleased with today’s Supreme Court order,” TikTok said in a statement. “We believe the Court will find the TikTok ban unconstitutional so the over 170 million Americans on our platform can continue to exercise their free speech rights.”

TikTok is also facing scrutiny in the European Union. To address regional regulators’ concerns, the company last year launched an initiative called Project Clover that is similar in focus to Project Texas. TikTok will spend €12 billion to move EU users’ information to data centers located within the bloc.

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