ByteDance, a Chinese firm that the federal government says is essentially a front for the Chinese government, owns the popular social media platform TikTok, which is used by an estimated 170 million Americans.

That’s a national security threat, says Congress, which last year passed a law giving ByteDance until Sunday to sell the platform or shut it down.

ByteDance sued to stop the ban, but the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday upheld the ban. President Donald Trump, who took his oath of office on Monday, vowed to use executive authority to save the app.

The government was wrong to force Americans off the app.

But we Americans should let TikTok go.

The federal government was right to prohibit federal employees from downloading TikTok on their devices because of the threat of Chinese hacking and spying. That policy should remain in place, because any administration would be stupid to allow such a threat to exist.

But American freedom ought to allow everyday Americans to make their own decisions — even bad decisions.

We would urge the federal government to implement a widespread education campaign informing Americans of TikTok’s dangers and even urging them to delete the app off their devices.

We would join the federal government in urging our readers to abandon TikTok. Social media has few saving graces as it is, and a platform that allows the Chinese government to spy on Americans is obviously especially horrendous.

We would hope that TikTok would disappear in America naturally as Americans made informed decisions to ditch the platform.

But the federal government shouldn’t make that decision for them.