TikTok says it is officially going dark in the United States now that a federal ban of the app is going into effect. Around 6 PM Pacific time, the app began notifying people in the US, including Verge staffers,

While we originally expected the app to continue working for existing users post a ban coming into effect, that now seems not to be the case. TikTok has essentially warned that it will “go dark” in the U.S., given that service providers underpinning the platform won’t be able to continue doing so lawfully.

Leaders at Oracle, the main cloud computing provider for TikTok's U.S. operations, have told some staff to prepare to shut down servers that host U.S. TikTok data as soon as 9 p.m. ET on Saturday (0200 GMT on Sunday) in advance of a U.

TikTok could shut down in the U.S. on Sunday with 170 million American users shut out due to a legal and political standoff. NBC News’ Savannah Sellers reports.

Social media platform TikTok said it will be "forced to go dark" on Sunday unless the White House gives a "definitive" statement about its future, the company said in an announcement Friday night.

On Saturday, TikTok users in the United States scrolled through the app for what could be its final hours after the Supreme Court upheld a law that requires ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese parent company, to sell the app by Sunday or otherwise face a ban.

The Chinese-owned company said it would cut off its services unless the U.S. assures Apple, Google and other companies that they would not be punished for hosting and distributing TikTok.

TikTok’s China-based parent company is required to find a buyer for its US operations or face a shutdown on Sunday under the law.

The Supreme Court has unanimously upheld the federal law banning TikTok beginning Sunday unless it’s sold by its China-based parent company.

TikTok is set to be banned in the US on 19 January after the Supreme Court denied a last ditch legal bid from its Chinese owner, ByteDance. It found the law banning the social media platform did not violate the first amendment rights of TikTok and its 170 million users, as the companies argued.

NBC News reports that TikTok has boosted advertisements for Lemon8, an application also owned by ByteDance, in recent days. Rival social-media apps and websites such as Instagram, YouTube, and Snapchat are expected to increase their user base in the wake of a possible ban.