By Seher Dareen
(Reuters) – U.S. content creators on TikTok have asked followers to subscribe to their channels on rival platforms such as Meta’s Instagram and Alphabet’s YouTube, after a federal appeals court ruled the social media app could be banned if it is not sold to a US-based company by January 19.
TikTok has become a major digital force in the US as it has grown to 170 million American users, mostly younger people drawn to its short, often irreverent videos. It has sucked advertisers away from some of the biggest US players and added commerce platform TikTok Shop, which has become a marketplace for small businesses.
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The US Congress, fearing that TikTok’s Chinese owners are collecting information on American consumers, has passed a law requiring its owner, China-backed ByteDance, to divest its TikTok in the US or face a ban. On Friday, a federal appeals court upheld the law.
Threats against TikTok by politicians and others have been increasing for years, causing some users to shrug off recent threats. That seemed to change on Friday, with the prospect of a ban in just six weeks. An appeal to the Supreme Court is still possible.
“For the first time, I realize that a lot of what I have worked for could disappear,” Chris Mowrey, a Democratic social media influencer with 470,000 TikTok followers, told Reuters. “I don’t think there’s been enough talk about how damaging this will be from an economic perspective to small businesses and makers.”
On the app, viewers and content creators expressed their concerns and confusion. Many said they doubted the platform would survive and were prepared for the worst.
Chris Burkett, a content creator on TikTok with 1.3 million people following his men’s lifestyle videos, said he didn’t think the platform would last long. “I don’t think this app has much longevity in the United States,” he said in a video post, asking his audience to follow him on other social media platforms, such as Instagram, YouTube, X and Threads.
“We’ve spent so many years and so much time building our community here,” says food travel content creator SnipingForDom, who has 898,000 followers on the app. Although he didn’t think the end of TikTok was near, he still told his followers to contact him on his Instagram page.
Others were also waiting for more information. Sarah Jannetti, a TikTok Shop consultant, said her clients aren’t concerned about a possible TikTok ban and won’t change their business “until they see something more concrete.”
(Reporting by Seher Dareen and Zaheer Kachwala in Bengaluru, Dawn Chmielewski in Los Angeles, Stephanie Kelly and Arriana McLymore in New York; Editing by Peter Henderson and David Gregorio)
