SAN FRANCISCO – With just days to go before the Supreme Court decides the fate of TikTok across the country, Bay Area content creators are anxiously awaiting the ruling.
“Every day you just hold your breath and wait to see what happens,” Kara Harms, known online as “Whimsy Soul,” said Tuesday. “I have some brand deals that I need to post in February. I don’t know if I can post those or not. I don’t know if I can complete that contract and get that income.”
Harms has been creating content for about 10 years and is building an online portfolio that extends beyond TikTok.
Because of that, she said, she understands the impact of TikTok and the effect it had on her work.
“I just don’t think the algorithms of Instagram or the other platforms would have facilitated my content as a creator like TikTok,” she said. “I quit and started creating content full-time in 2017 and hired my husband in 2018, so that was before TikTok. But I was able to explode our growth and make a bigger impact on my community once I had TikTok available .”
Stef Anderson, known online as ‘SideofStef’, also posts on multiple social media platforms such as Harms.
Both Anderson and Harms said they felt like they could build a better, personal connection with their followers on TikTok.
TikTok has also led to more deals with brands and connections with followers, including in-person meetings.
“The reach is much greater, I find. I feel like the algorithm is much more specific. As far as my meetings go, I think most of my people come from TikTok,” she said. “The brand partnerships I have experienced (TikTok) are out of this world.”
Next week, the Supreme Court is expected to uphold a law passed last year with bipartisan support in Congress.
The law requires TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, to sell the app to a government-approved company by January 19. If the sale is not completed by January 19, TikTok will be banned.
The law was passed by Congress due to national security concerns, including the potential that the Chinese government could manipulate content and access sensitive user data.
If the ban were to go into effect, TikTok would no longer be available on mobile app stores. Users who have already downloaded the app on their phone will still have access, but new messages and updates will no longer be available.
“It’s like a double-edged sword because (TikTok) has a lot of my data. To get payments from TikTok, they have to have a lot of information from me, which was very scary to submit at first. But then every time I get emails a few days from other companies saying my data had been compromised in a data breach. So it’s not just TikTok, it’s everywhere,” Anderson said.
“The fact that the government is going after TikTok because it’s owned by a foreign entity? I also worry about how that will open the doors for future cases. It’s a very slippery slope. Are we going to ban the BBC because it’s owned by a foreign entity?” Harms said. “If (TikTok) gets banned, have a little mercy for everyone on the app. Not just content creators losing their income, (but also) the small businesses and the people who rely on TikTok to connect with their customers. It’s going to be a tough, tough few months.”
