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

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.

Republican Sen. Josh Hawley -- who said he believes the Supreme Court ruled correctly "on the law" with TikTok -- said the problem right now is that China is preventing its sale to a U.S. buyer.  "I think somebody would buy it if China would sell it.

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,

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

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.

The United States Supreme Court upheld a law on Friday that will force TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, to sell the app or face a ban. However, the future of the platform is still unclear. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) praised the court's decision,

Last year, the Biden Administration signed a law that the Chinese company ByteDance, who owns the social media platform TikTok, needs to sell the company in a few weeks. Nyaradzo "Naya" Bere, a Colorado TikTok influencer,

Paul said he was disappointed, adding, "I do believe that banning a social media app like TikTok is a violation of the First Amendment."

Roughly six in 10 teenagers say they use TikTok regularly, according to Pew Research Center. According to Pew, public support for the ban has steadily declined over time, and last summer was at 32%. Last fall, Pew found that about 4 in 10 young adults regularly got their news on the platform, as well as 17% of all adults.

During a Senate hearing this week on the Laken Riley Act, Senator Josh Hawley lost it on a witness over his past comments on illegal immigration.