The lawyer for TikTok and its Chinese parent company ByteDance offered a warning during Supreme Court arguments over a law that would compel the sale of the short-video app or ban it in the United States: If Congress could do this to TikTok,

The Supreme Court on Friday was divided over the constitutionality of a federal law that would require social-media giant TikTok to shut down in the United States unless its Chinese parent company can sell it by Jan.

A TikTok ban might be one step closer to reality even if there are still some lingering doubts about whether a federal law will really go into effect on January 19.