TikTok faces an uphill battle to avoid a US ban if its Chinese owner doesn’t sell the wildly popular social media app, judging from a grilling by an appellate court panel.

TikTok will be in federal court on Monday, aiming to block a new law that will ban the popular video app in the United States early next year.

Justice Department lawyer Daniel Tenny pressed the U.S. government's stance that TikTok, under Chinese ownership, poses a national security threat because of its access to vast amounts of personal data on Americans, asserting that China can covertly manipulate information that Americans consume via the popular app.