The Supreme Court seems likely to uphold a law that would ban TikTok in the United States beginning Jan. 19 unless the popular social media program is sold by its China-based parent company.

A majority of the Supreme Court appeared likely to uphold a controversial ban on TikTok over concerns about its ties to China, with justices lobbing pointed questions at lawyers for the social media app and a group of its content creators.

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,