A bipartisan bill was passed by the House of Representatives on March 13th of 2024 that would lead to the national ban of TikTok. This will be the case unless the China-based owner sells its stake in the company. The bill has yet to go through the Senate, so it is ultimately still unclear on how this will proceed. The main concern from lawmakers, law enforcement, and intelligence officals comes from the insecurity of user data and suppression of content by Chinese government. The government has had this concern ever since the app has been in service. Many content creators who rely on TikTok as their income and as a platform for their businesses are worried about their future and standard of living if this becomes reality.
Overall, as a non-user of TikTok myself, I do not personally become impacted by this. I can clearly see how many people, and especially the younger generations, can become worried. I would be interested to see how much revenue, expenses, marketing, advertising, and other business interaction have been influcenced within the 4 years that TikTok has been alive. I assume it would be astronomical numbers for both the application and its users. With this all being said, I do not see the Senate following through with the ban and think this will die down.
NOTE: This is not based on true economics or studied by professionals. This is solely looked at on a consumer level, by consumers and small business owners / users of TikTok.
It is crazy just how many people are able to make a living based off of social app networking. A lot of people, especially since covid, have seemed to make a name for themselves and have used their TikTok platform to create lucrative deals branching outside of the app. I think these people are usually pretty good at marketing themselves as a personality and just like vine or other apps died they will adapt and move to other platforms, but who knows.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, even if TikTok is banned, a new platform will rise, and the creators that use the app as their primary income source will likely succeed on this new app. This being said it could become difficult to see the same amount of users as TikTok has amassed over 1 billion users.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Tim, if TikTok is banned there is always going to be a new platform. Similarily to the fall of Music.ly it got taken over by a host company and then the start of TikTok came about. I don't think that the government banning Tik Tok will be able to stop a new app from taking over. Furthermore, even if the ban does occur, it will take time to set in place and get approval by the other branches of government.
ReplyDeleteAnother concern with tiktok is the apps poor regulation of false AI produced content. While the app claims to ban such content, in practice, AI-produced false information is a common occurrence on the platform because the platforms algorithm supports content that is shocking. It makes sense that the government would want to ban such an app, but as Tim said, even if tiktok is banned, another platform will likely arise, and this platform will have even less regulation due to its brand new status. It feels as if we are in an impossible situation.
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