The impending US TikTok ban is starting to impact content creators whose livelihoods depend on the popular video app.
The ban is expected to take effect on January 19, after the Supreme Court heard arguments on Friday on the move after months of debate. Congress has argued in favor of imposing the ban over privacy concerns with Chinese parent company ByteDance, while TikTok’s lawyers say a ban would violate users’ rights to free expression.
Katie Kunz, a Washington, D.C.-based wedding designer who posts about the ban on her TikTok account @portraitofabrideonfire, says she’s at risk of losing her job.
“It really hit me where I was, 90 percent of my business comes from TikTok. Ninety percent of my clients,” she said. “I don’t think I’ve ever received a single inquiry from a single client from Instagram.”
Koons has been posting on TikTok for about a year to her more than 23,000 followers about bridal fashion and politics, and she says it’s opened more doors than she thought possible.
She’s been encouraging her TikTok followers to move over to her Snapchat and Bluesky accounts, with some success.
Recently, Cons urged people to boycott Meta platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, as well as X, Google, YouTube, and LinkedIn, to lobby in favor of banning TikTok.
“I would rather just see the consequences of not listening to people,” she said.
Supreme Court justices on Friday investigated the nature of TikTok’s expression rights and the government’s concerns about national security. “Targeting TikTok seems arbitrary,” says Joan Molinaro, a full-time TikTok content creator in the US, adding that a potential ban would “hit the bottom line” for small businesses and creators.
She says the government’s push for the ban demonstrates a “massive” disconnect between politicians and the American public.
This sentiment is shared by Nikita Redkar, a Brooklyn, New York-based comedian who has nearly 800,000 followers as @nikitadumptruck on TikTok.
She says content creators are angry.
“There’s a cost of living crisis, there’s a climate crisis, there’s a lot of crises, but somehow the entire American government came together to vote on this,” Redcar said. “It seems like a very obvious way to control the narrative.”
TikTok is expected to be removed from app stores
Under the law, TikTok will be banned on January 19 unless ByteDance pulls the app, which it has shown no sign of doing. If the ban goes into effect, the app is expected to be removed from app stores, and its 170 million American users will not be able to receive its updates. People can still keep it on their phones, but it will deteriorate over time without updates, and the company may choose to block its users from accessing it before that happens.
However, US President-elect Donald Trump has indicated that he no longer supports the ban, opening the possibility of reversing it when he takes office on January 20.
Another Chinese short video app, RedNote — called Xiaohongshu in China — has reached the top of Apple’s App Store charts in the US, as some TikTok creators migrate there in anticipation of a ban.
Founded in 2013, Rednote has around 300 million active users, though some worry it could also be banned in the US for the same reason as TikTok.
Comedian Redcar started posting on TikTok during the pandemic in 2021, and discovered an audience beyond what she’d been able to tap into during several years of doing stand-up comedy.
She found a niche in explaining the news in a comedic, easy-to-understand way, and addressed controversial issues as if she were reporting “high school drama” and gossip. Redkar has since found a strong community of other political content creators, and is making money through brand deals on the platform.
She says the reality of the ban is only just beginning to emerge.
“It’s definitely scary. I don’t really think I fully realized what could happen, but now I’m kind of preparing for the reality of it,” she said. “I started talking to my audience about moving to other apps, and then sharing my honest thoughts about it.”
Redcar worries that her political content won’t play well on other platforms like Instagram Reels, and says she’ll also miss TikTok’s video editing features.
“It’s going to be messy.”
“I think my revenue would be significantly impacted if I only got paid to advertise on Instagram,” she said. “Now, I have to rush on board some of these other apps, like YouTube, but then there’s going to be a huge influx of people heading to YouTube…. It’s going to be a little chaotic.”
Redkar hopes the ban will stop, giving creators more time to figure out their next steps or develop a new app that reflects the “community” feel of TikTok.
However, TikTok has not been banned in Canada Order to close Its canadian operations last year, and federal public employees I couldn’t reach The application has been on government phones since February 2023.
Creators in Canada are also feeling uncertain, with deals for US brands and a large portion of their following up in the air.
Joey Petari, a Toronto-based model with 3.5 million TikTok followers under the handle @joewoahy, has been on the platform since its inception, and was previously on Musical.ly before its merger with TikTok.
Petari says he doesn’t know where his career would have been if he hadn’t gained social media after doing comedy sketches and lip-sync videos.
“I think we’ll still be affected (as Canadians) because a lot of our followers are based in America, and a lot of these brands are American,” he said.
Petare says he’s trying to stay positive and hopes it doesn’t affect him too much. Meanwhile, he plans to continue posting content on other platforms and encourage his followers to join him.
“I mean that’s all I can really do, right?”
https://i.cbc.ca/1.7377456.1731017943!/cumulusImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/16x9_1180/to-tiktok-office.jpg?im=Resize%3D620
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