The US social media company TikTok must sell its business by January 19. If the popular app is not sold to a US company by that date, it will be banned. After a US appeals court ruled, TikTok creators have asked their followers to switch to rival platforms.
Reuters reported that TikTok’s US content creators are asking followers to subscribe to their channels on platforms such as Meta-owned Instagram or Alphabet-owned YouTube. TikTok has 170 million users in the US, making it a major digital force in the country.
TikTok offers short videos. However, sometimes irrelevant videos are also posted. And they are quite popular with the young population. Advertisers are the ones who are in the most danger. Many advertisers have moved away from them and are advertising on TikTok.
Apart from this, this social media has also opened a commercial platform called TikTok Shop. It has now become a shopping platform for small businesses.
The US Congress fears that TikTok’s Chinese owners are using this social media to collect information about US consumers. Congress has passed a law that states that TikTok’s company in the United States, China’s ByteDance, must sell it. Otherwise, it will have to be banned. The appeals court upheld this law on Friday.
Threats from politicians and others against TikTok are increasing. Many were not paying attention to these threats. However, the situation changed on Friday. And it could be banned in just six months. Although, if desired, an appeal can still be filed in the Supreme Court.
“This is the first time I’ve realized that there are so many things I’ve worked on that could disappear,” Democratic social media influencer Chris Mowry, who has 470,000 followers on TikTok, told Reuters. “No one is talking about how devastating this could be for small businesses and content creators.”
A lot of people on TikTok are also talking about this. They’re expressing their concerns and confusion. Some say they don’t think the platform will survive. So they’re preparing for the worst.
Chris Buckett, who makes men’s lifestyle videos on TikTok, has 1.3 million followers. He says he doesn’t think the platform will survive. “I don’t think the app has much life left in the US,” he says. He tells his followers to follow him on Instagram, YouTube, X and Threads.
SnipingForDom, who makes food and travel content, has 889,000 followers on the app. “We’ve spent so many years and so much time building our community here,” he says. But he doesn’t think TikTok will die, and he’s still telling his followers to join him on Instagram.
