The U.S. Treasury Department on Friday imposed sanctions on alleged hacker Yin Kecheng and cybersecurity company Sichuan Juxinhe Network Technology Co., accusing both of being involved in a series of hacks against American telecom companies.

Experts have indicated that common workarounds, such as VPNs, may not be effective due to the app's ability to detect user locations through geolocation data.

What happens on your smartphone once a US law banning the social media app TikTok takes effect on Sunday? It will depend on the actions of TikTok parent ByteDance, President Joe Biden, President-elect Donald Trump,

What happens on your smartphone once a US law banning the social media app TikTok takes effect on Jan. 19? It will depend on the actions of TikTok parent ByteDance, President-elect Donald Trump and some of the largest tech giants in the US.

TikTok has announced that it will cease operations in the U.S. on Sunday, unless the Biden administration provides assurances to tech giants.

The United States Supreme Court on Friday ruled against TikTok's bid to avoid a ban that could shut the app down in just two days and impact millions of users who rely on the platform for entertainment,

They also said Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), a past TikTok suitor, might end up interested again, and there might be interest from Walmart Inc. (WMT) or Oracle Corp. (ORCL), which at one point in 2020 ...

TikTok and its Chinese parent company are facing off against the Justice Department Friday in a hearing before the Supreme Court that will help determine the fate of the popular social media app.

"In my opinion, TikTok should not be banned in the USA, even though such a ban may benefit the X platform,” Elon Musk wrote on X in April. "Doing so would be contrary to freedom of speech and expression. It is not what America stands for." To note, a TikTok spokesperson told the BBC that the Bloomberg report was "pure fiction."

"Unless the Biden Administration immediately provides a definitive statement to satisfy the most critical service providers assuring non-enforcement, unfortunately TikTok will be forced to go dark on January 19," the company said. The White House declined to comment.

Cloud service provider Oracle (NYSE:ORCL) could see some disruption to its work with TikTok. Oracle hosts TikTok's U.S. user data on its servers, reviews the app's source code and delivers the app to the app stores. Google declined to comment ...

This potential ban is being challenged by TikTok on First Amendment grounds, with the company referring to it as an "unprecedented censorship" for the over 170 million Americans who use the app. The Supreme Court's decision could have significant repercussions for stocks such as Meta (NASDAQ: META) and Oracle (NYSE: ORCL ), among others.