President Trump this week mused about barring the popular short video app TikTok, which has reportedly been downloaded over 165 million times in the U.S.

His comments came a day after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo floated such a ban as part of an escalating trade war with China. TikTok is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, and critics warn that the Chinese government can spy on its users.

But while the Trump administration has talked about “banning” TikTok, it’s unclear how exactly such a ban would be carried out. Any sort of decree ordering people not to use the app would likely be unconstitutional—and would be met with resistance from millions of Americans, especially young ones, for whom TikTok has become a form of cultural expression.

According to lawyers at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a digital rights group, Trump’s pledge to ban TikTok may reflect bluster more than any sort of coherent policy.

Kurt Opsahl, general counsel of EFF, says the White House could attempt tactics such as barring federal workers from using TikTok or preventing federal money from being spent on the app. A more aggressive approach, he suggests, could involve using export regulations to require U.S. companies to obtain a license to do business with TikTok.

For practical purposes, such a licensing requirement would likely target Apple and Google, whose app stores are where the vast majority of people get the TikTok app in the first place.

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