As of Wednesday, April 24, a bill was signed into law by President Joe Biden, enforcing that if TikTok is not bought from its current owners, Bytedance, within the next 270 days, then the app will be removed from all app stores throughout the United States. Yet the President may extend this time frame to a year.
According to a recent Associated Press article, 170 million Americans are on TikTok, and many of these people are between the ages of 10 and 21. TikTok user junior Reese Tanis is against the proposed ban because she sees great value to the app.
“TikTok is such a great platform to spread ideas and your thoughts and spread awareness while also having fun,” Tanis said. “It’s just an app where mostly, all ages, can come and collaborate together, especially Gen Z, and use their voices to spread news and their thoughts
and opinions on things.”
Not only is TikTok a source of entertainment, but it has also become a valuable marketing tool. In September 2023, the app launched TikTok Shop where users can link items, foods, and clothing for their followers or any user to buy.
According to a study done by Vogue Business, TikTok Shop contributed $24.2 billion to US GDP, and has supported over 200,000 jobs last year. TikTok Shop has been particu-
larly helpful for small businesses, earning them a total of $14.7 Billion in revenue.
TikTok Influencer Chika Uwazie, whos tiktok handle is @chikauwazie, has built up a strong following with 100.4k followers to promote her small business called The Soft Nest.
“This app solely helps me with my business,” Uwazie said. “All my booking calls are solely
built on this app.”
For many business owners like Uwazie, the proposed TikTok ban would be devastating. Yet, Head of Brand Marketing for Cash App, Mike Earl, believes that businesses will just turn to other social media platforms, TV ads, and other marketing outlets.
“I think a lot of people use TikTok in this country,” Earl said, “If it’s banned, I don’t know if it will have a massive impact per se, because I think somebody else will just replace it with a different
product, whether that’s YouTube shorts, which is very TikTok, or Instagram Reels, becomes
the dominant player.”
Influencer Kristen Bousq, whose TikTok handle is @kbousq, is planning on doing that.
“I’d definitely just focus more of my energy on Instagram and potentially tap more into YouTube Shorts, specifically.” Bousq said.
As the influencers and marketing strategists are working on finding a way to work through this possible ban, from a political standpoint the ban will definitely affect the upcoming election in November of 2024.
In the summer of 2020, Former President Donald Trump advocated for the ban of Tik-
Tok, for similar reason of the Chinese Government being too involved. Yet, according to
a published by ABC News, President Trump reasled a statement saying he is against the ban because he doesn’t want Facebook to become too big ‘because Facebook is more of threat
than TikTok.’
Completely banning an app is going to change a lot of upcoming voters perspective of the candidates, not only that it might be the reason a voter choses one or the other candi-
date. There are many ways the government can fix the problem at hand, and many are curious
if a ban is the right thing to do.
“I think a ban is a lazy way to address a bigger issue that’s probably more correlated to social media more broadly.” Earl said.
There are going to be so many more people upset with the bad rather than the ones who are glad that it is banned. With every single social media platform your information is naturally given out, for example, with Snapchat, sharing your location is so easy. Instagram, adding your location to everything, and so much more.
As more information is released, there will be more to say about the ban and all that people can do now is wait. TikTok influencer Anahita, tiktok handle @anahitaxo, who has 198k followers, loves TikTok.
“TikTok has changed my life,” Anahita said.
