Editor’s note: The Supreme Court upheld the statute requiring the Chinese parent firm to sell TikTok or risk being banned in the United States early on Friday, following the publication of this story.
The fate of TikTok, a popular app for short videos, is up in the air this week. Creators, users, and social media experts are complaining about the potential cultural and financial losses that U.S. users may suffer if the program is banned this weekend.
According to Oliver Haimson, an assistant professor of information at the University of Michigan, a lot of people are genuinely using it to earn a living. Naturally, people use it for amusement, but they also use it to find knowledge about a wide range of topics and to support their communities and social networks.
Justices of the skeptical Supreme Court consider saving TikTok from an impending ban.
Because TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, is subject to Chinese national security laws that can require companies to turn over user data at any time, the U.S. Supreme Court has been considering arguments regarding a law signed by President Joe Biden last April that claims the app poses security concerns.
The measure received broad bipartisan support at the time it was signed. It stated that TikTok will be removed from US app stores if ByteDance doesn’t sell it to a non-Chinese owner by January 19.
The justices of the U.S. Supreme Court asked why they should enact the regulation on Friday, stating that TikTok is free to choose the optimal algorithm for its platform in the US if it is divested. The goal of the law, according to TikTok’s attorneys, is to restrict free speech, and the company’s approximately 170 million American customers would be negatively impacted if it were shut down in the United States.
Users of TikTok and the creative economy
However, the problem is not only one of free speech for many TikTok creators; it also has an impact on their ability to make a living.
Last week, Columbia, South Carolina-based inventor Callie Goodwin traveled to Washington, D.C., to join fellow TikTokers in their efforts to repeal the law. In addition to having two TikTok accounts and a full-time job in marketing and social media, Goodwin has about 250,000 followers. In the midst of the epidemic in 2020, she started Sparks of Joy Co., a pre-stamped greeting card company. Overnight success was achieved by a TikTok post that encouraged people to shop from her little business rather than big box stores.
Goodwin claimed that it fundamentally altered the course of events for both his company and himself. Particularly during a time of loneliness, people came together to support my company and were thrilled that we were reviving the craft of handwritten cards.
On Meta’s Facebook and Instagram accounts, Goodwin had been sharing content about her little business, but it didn’t get much attention. Her sales skyrocketed once she began promoting her goods on TikTok and used its e-commerce platform, TikTok Shop. Last year, Goodwin hired 16 part-time workers and Sparks of Joy Co. made $30,000 in sales in nine days. At the moment, TikTok Shop and consumers finding her on the app account for almost 98% of her overall sales.
According to Goodwin, the unique feature of TikTok is its algorithm. Small businesses like hers are frequently promoted to those who otherwise might not have found them because to the discoverability feature, which directs users toward material it believes they will enjoy.
Additionally, TikTok’s Creator Fund pays U.S. participants for views on their videos if they gain 10,000 followers, which is a different model for video monetization than other platforms. In addition to selling her goods, Goodwin also earns money from views on her videos for her small business account and The Lose it Log, which she created to chronicle her health journey.
According to a 2023 study, Goodwin is one of an estimated 27 million creators in the United States that rely on social media for some of their revenue. Of those, 11.6 million people, or 44%, reported making social media their full-time work.
Goodwin claims that although she posts on other websites, she is not compensated in any way by Meta accounts, even for films that receive millions of views. Additionally, TikTok’s high follower and engagement rates have a significant impact on brand collaborations, in which businesses pay creators to review or highlight a product.
Therefore, if you remove TikTok, we will no longer be able to profit from the views and material we create, she stated. Additionally, a few of my acquaintances who rely on TikTok for their whole income have quit their full-time employment. They are getting ready and bracing.
To postpone the Jan. 19 deadline, U.S. Senators Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), and House Representative Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) introduced the Extend the TikTok Deadline Act on Tuesday. On Monday, Markey stated on the Senate floor that the ban was hastily passed without giving enough thought to the significant effects it will have on the 170 million Americans who use the platform.
According to him, TikTok is now a place where users can create community during trying times, earn money for groceries and medical treatment, and share vital resources during calamities like the wildfires in Los Angeles.
Online forums + atmosphere
According to Haimson, one of the most beneficial aspects of TikTok is the ability to connect with people both domestically and internationally and obtain knowledge. His studies concentrate on underrepresented groups, particularly individuals who consider themselves to be LGBTQ+.
Users may now locate LGBT TikTok producers who communicate about their identities and life experiences thanks to the platform’s algorithm, which frequently enables people to discover more about themselves without ever having to meet in person, according to Haimson. “That’s my definition of community,” he remarked.
During his first term, President Donald Trump considered banning WeChat, a Chinese messaging, social networking, and payment service that Haimson has previously studied. Then, in 2021, Biden lifted the prohibition.
People use this entire infrastructure for a variety of purposes, including money, employment, community, and assistance. Haimson added, “I think we can kind of think about TikTok as being similar.”
Under the handle ProfessorCasey, Casey Fiesler, an associate professor in the College of Media, Communications, and Information at the University of Colorado Boulder, creates instructive TikTok content about technology ethics and policy. She wants to reach individuals outside of academia on subjects like artificial intelligence and make these subjects more approachable. According to Fiesler, TikTok’s algorithm has introduced her to a few lovely communities of educators, scientists, academics, and other innovators.
According to Fiesler, TikTok’s recommender system is also quite good at exposing my material to interested users. It is fantastic since it reaches the appropriate folks and fewer of the wrong people.
She claimed that TikTok’s comment section is much friendlier than other platforms, in addition to doing a better job of matching her with the creators and viewers she wants to know. In the event that TikTok is no longer a possibility, she plans to shift her content to Instagram, where she now posts. She is, however, concerned about this week’s proposed modifications to Meta’s content guidelines, which include eliminating its third-party fact-checking program and permitting more forms of free expression on subjects that are regularly the focus of political controversy.
According to her, it is difficult to predict how feasible that platform would be in the future.
According to Paige Knapp, founder and CEO of social marketing business Kylee Social LLC, based in Los Angeles, TikTok’s entry into the social media scene has a significant impact on how platforms present user content. According to Knapp, even the most intelligent iterations of earlier social media platforms relied on users actively following individuals or content they found appealing and displaying more of that content to them.
For the first time, a user may download TikTok, create an account, and never follow it again, all while maintaining a well crafted For You Page, according to Knapp. The average user was getting content from spaces that they may have not ventured previously, but the algorithm was saying, hey, based on your signals the data signals you send us we think you want to, you know, see these other things too.
According to Knapp, TikTok has given young people a unique opportunity to connect with global events and cultural occasions. While many millennials may have watched news coverage or read about the Arab Spring in the early 2010s, today s young generations can watch world events, like the war in Gaza, playing out in real time on video.
You sort of have a lens into other people s worlds, whether that s a creator, or an average person sharing their perspective on something, or a view into what s happening in Palestine, Knapp said. And I think that s a part of why there s a big uproar about losing it for a number of reasons.
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What follows?
There s a chance that the Supreme Court could rule to not uphold the ban this week, or it could rule that there should be more time for ByteDance to consider divesting TikTok.
If the ban does go into effect on Jan. 19, TikTok is planning to shut off its app for U.S. users that day,The Information reportedWednesday. A source told the outlet that users in the U.S. will encounter a pop-up message about the ban if they open the app.
Some users might try to look for work-arounds, like using a virtual private network, or VPN, set to a location outside the U.S. to continue using the app, Haimson said. But for those worried about security, these options may make it worse. If you can t update your app or have accurate location settings, the security patches included in software updates won t be applied to your account, and you may be vulnerable.
But I don t think people are going to give it up easily, Haimson said.
Other social media sites may experience widespreadplatform migration, Fiesler said. People have been moving from one online platform to another for decades, she said think about the rise and fall in popularity of MySpace or Tumblr in the early and mid-2000s.
Usually that migration is done by choice, Fiesler said, like users leaving X, formerly known as Twitter. The day after the 2024 election,X experienced the most deactivationssince Elon Musk took ownership in 2022, and rival platform Bluesky reported 1 million new users the same week. But if TikTok is banned, there will probably be a period of users testing other apps for substitutions.
What often happens instead is fragmentation, where people land on a lot of different platforms, Fiesler said. I think that is likely what would happen if TikTok users have to find a new home they will find a lot of new homes.
In the last few days, Chinese social media app Xiaohongshu, or RedNote,became the No. 1 downloaded free appin Apple s U.S. app store, and Lemon8, which is also owned by ByteDance, also saw an increase of downloads. Meta s Reels, or Youtube s Shorts offer users a similar way to post short-form content, though TikTok users say its comment structure, discoverability and algorithm are quite different.
If TikTok shuts down in the U.S. on Sunday, it may take a while for people to fill the voids of entertainment, information, economic opportunity and connection left in TikTok s wake, Knapp said. She said she feels no other app matches the welcoming feeling, camaraderie and tone of TikTok.
It kind of reminds me of the ambience at a restaurant, Knapp said. You can recreate the menu, as it were, for Tiktok the idea of a discoverable algorithm that you know serves recommended content. But if that ambiance is not right, then users are not going to spend a ton of time there.
The potential loss of TikTok is one Knapp said she feels personally, and she knows her creator clients and the companies that spend money on sponsored content and brand partnerships will feel, too. The impact will certainly also be felt by regular, everyday people who found new hobbies, learned new skills and had their minds opened to ideas and concepts they wouldn t have otherwise considered, Knapp said.
[TikTok] gave rise to these really unique perspectives, Knapp said. And just a diverse roster of folks who ended up capturing voice and kind of being able to not just entertain and things, but also really make an impact with the following that they cultivated.
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