(CBS DETROIT) – A federal appeals court upheld the federal ban on the social media app TikTokwhich is expected to come into effect in January.
Both major U.S. parties have long warned that the Chinese government could use TikTok to spy on and harvest data from its roughly 170 million American users, or to covertly influence the American public by amplifying or suppressing certain content. But for content creators like Detroit’s Jon Kung, who makes cooking videos on the app, the concern is that Americans are missing out on something special.
“It was our window to the outside world during the pandemic, and from there so many small businesses and so many career paths emerged,” Kung said.
Friday’s ruling means TikTok is closer to a U.S. ban unless it can convince Chinese parent company ByteDance to sell and find a buyer by Jan. 19. Kung tells CBS Detroit it would be a crushing blow to the many creators who make a living. of the app and other small businesses that use the platform for marketing.
“It is difficult to understand how many who have invested so much of their time, effort and passion into building businesses for themselves and creating platforms for themselves through TikTok will lose it almost overnight.”
CBS News Detroit spoke with others in Metro Detroit about their feelings about the possible ban.
“That’s really addictive, and I personally have removed it. I recently removed it and my productivity has increased; I’ve just had a lot of benefits from it,” said Faris Almomani of Canton.
Connor Corby of Canton said, “I still use it. I still enjoy it and it gives me something to do when I’m bored. When I’m bored I don’t know what else I’m going to do.” do things differently than TikTok.”
TikTok and ByteDance are expected to appeal to the Supreme Court, although it is unclear whether the court will hear the case.
Now it is unknown what the TikTok ban would ultimately look like. The law doesn’t require the app to be suddenly removed from users’ phones, but it does require it to be removed from Apple and Google’s app stores, meaning US users will no longer be able to download the app or install new updates.
