In an effort to save TikTok, President Donald Trump, who has gained 15 million followers on the app since last year, is pressuring China to sell half the company to the United States.

U.S. officials have long feared that the widely popular short-form video app could be used as a vehicle for espionage.

TikTok held firm and refused to be sold, Congress blinked, and now everyone is scrambling to avoid a backlash from its younger user base.

The TikTok ban ignites a heated debate over privacy, free speech, and national security. While some view it as a necessary measure, others see it as an infringement on rights. The app is back online temporarily.

The human dancing videos and the cat dancing videos on TikTok have nothing on the dancing by politicians who voted for the law forcing its Chinese owner, ByteDance, to either sell the popular and

Multiple people on social media, including conservative media personality Candace Owens, have claimed that Israeli lobbying groups have pushed the U.S. to ban TikTok because of the high number of pro-Palestine content being created and shared on the app.

U.S. users of TikTok briefly lost access to the platform Saturday evening ahead of the Jan. 19 deadline. This came after the Supreme Court ruled Friday that Congress’ TikTok ban is constitutional, despite widespread First Amendment concerns.

In what’s being called a “landmark ruling,” the US Supreme Court cleared the way for a controversial TikTok ban to take effect this weekend. “Congress has determined that divestiture is necessary to address its well-supported national security concerns regarding TikTok’s data collection practices and relationship with a foreign adversary,

TikTok went dark on Sunday, leaving thousands of content producers in the lurch and angering tens of millions of users. When attempting to login to the app, users got a

Republican Sen. Josh Hawley — who said he believes the Supreme Court ruled correctly “on the law” with TikTok — said the problem right now

NBC News received comments from Sens. Rand Paul, Josh Hawley, and Richard Blumenthal about the Supreme Court's ruling that the ban on Chinese-owned social media app TikTok can move forward this weekend.

TikTok went offline in the United States Saturday night, less than two hours before a ban was slated to go into effect.