Nandini Roy Choudhury, writer
Brief news
- Content creators on TikTok are expressing emotional farewells to their audiences as the app faces potential discontinuation in the U.S. due to national security concerns linked to its Chinese parent company, ByteDance.
- The Supreme Court upheld a law requiring either a forced sale of TikTok or a ban, with President-elect Donald Trump set to make a decision on the app’s future, while creators are encouraging followers to find them on other platforms.
- TikTok has become a significant platform for creators, boasting around 8.5 million users in the U.S. with over 1,000 followers, despite facing competition from similar services introduced by Meta and Google.
Detailed news
As the possibility of TikTok being discontinued in the United States loomed, content creators on the app spent the week posting poignant farewells to their respective audiences.
Kimberly Rhoades, a creator of amusing videos, was speaking to her three million followers on Thursday. She said, “I never even in a million years ever thought that anybody would ever just care about what I say.” “Even if this app is discontinued, it was undoubtedly a breathtaking experience.”
The statute that requires a forced sale of TikTok by Chinese-parent company ByteDance or a ban of the app in the United States was upheld by the Supreme Court in a decision that was handed down the following day. It is possible that the short-form video app that became popular among the general public and altered the way in which people in the United States consumed social media while they were confined to their homes during the epidemic will be taken from the internet and withdrawn from app stores that are managed by Apple and Google. The app is scheduled to go black as soon as Sunday.
Due to the fact that TikTok has ties to China and activities that involve data harvesting, the law was passed by Congress and signed by President Joe Biden. The measure was cited as a national security threat.
Rhoades hummed approximately thirty seconds of “Taps,” which is a military song that is frequently performed at funerals, in a follow-up video that was released on Friday. At the end of her speech, she stated, “It was a privilege to make you laugh.”
It is now up to President-elect Donald Trump to decide what will happen to TikTok in the United States. During his first government, Trump advocated for a ban on TikTok, but he has since changed his mind on the issue. For the purpose of providing his administration with “the opportunity to pursue a political resolution of the questions at issue in the case,” President Trump submitted a request to the Supreme Court in December, requesting that the law’s execution be halted.
The following is an excerpt from a post that President Trump made on his social media app Truth Social on Friday: “My decision on TikTok will be made in the not too distant future, but I must have time to review the overall situation.” Keep an eye out!” Shou Chew, the CEO of TikTok, is one of the many prominent figures in the technology industry that are anticipated to be present at the inauguration of Donald Trump on Monday in Washington, District of Columbia. “for his commitment to work with us to find a solution that keeps TikTok available” in the United States, Chew expressed his gratitude to Trump in a brief video posted on his website.
Many TikTok producers have been preparing for the app’s demise, advising their admirers to locate them on other social platforms such as Google’s YouTube and Meta’s Facebook and Instagram. This is going to happen regardless of whether or not Trump is ultimately successful in finding a method to keep the app alive for American consumers. Due to the fact that RedNote, a Chinese social media app that is quite similar to TikTok, climbed to the top of the app store on Apple’s website on Monday, it is clear that millions of people who use TikTok are looking for alternatives.
During the time that the ban deadline was drawing near, it seems that the creator migration took up much more momentum. Influencers such as Megan Cruz took use of the opportunity presented by their farewell films to promote the qualities that TikTok possesses.
It was possible for anyone to take on a leadership role.
In a video that was uploaded earlier this week, Cruz asserted that “people were engaged with things like BookTok and FilmTok and the idea of being engaged in culture on TikTok because you didn’t have to be a big creator.” Cruz made this statement in reference to TikTok. Due to the fact that everyone had the opportunity to be a leader in a conversation and to make a point that resonated with millions of others, there was an incentive for people to participate in the conversation.
The acquisition of a startup company known as Musical.ly by ByteDance in 2017 for around one billion dollars is considered to be the beginning of TikTok’s existence as a viral phenomenon. The next year, ByteDance merged Musical.ly and TikTok into a single platform.
Around that time, TikTok began to gain popularity in the United States, primarily as an application that young people utilized for the purpose of creating short dance videos and lip-syncing content. When consumers were looking for ways to pass the time and interact with others online during the pandemic lockdowns of 2020, TikTok was able to capitalize on this opportunity and become a huge success.
Because of the app’s tremendous success, internet titans Meta and Google have begun offering services that are similar to it. In August of 2020, Meta released Reels to Instagram users in the United States, and then after that, they brought it to Facebook. In March of 2021, Google introduced YouTube Shorts to the United States of America.
Even though there was a lot of competition, TikTok continued to expand.
According to the market intelligence firm Sensor Tower, TikTok has approximately 115 million monthly active users in the United States. This is in comparison to YouTube, which has 258 million users, Facebook, which has 253 million users, and Instagram, which has 131 million users.
The Chinese software TikTok has become a hub for creators, which are defined as users who have more than one thousand followers, despite the fact that it is behind its competitors in terms of total users. According to HypeAuditor, a platform for influencer marketing, TikTok has about 8.5 million users in the United States that fall into that group. This amount is significantly higher than the approximately 5.2 million users on Instagram and the 1.1 million users on YouTube.
On January 9, the internet advocacy group Project Liberty, which is owned by businessman Frank McCourt, made the announcement that it had submitted a proposal to purchase TikTok from ByteDance at conditions that were not disclosed earlier. In an interview with CNBC on Friday, McCourt stated that “we, I believe, are the only bidder” that satisfies the necessary conditions for decoupling the technology from the Chinese algorithm.
According to an estimate of the value of TikTok’s business in the United States that was provided by CFRA Research Senior Vice President Angelo Zino, potential purchasers may be required to spend between $40 billion and $50 billion in order to purchase ByteDance in the event that the company decides to sell.
As a result of the impending shutdown, several creators are informing their followers of the locations where they can locate them. Users are being encouraged by certain individuals to refrain from following them on Meta’s platforms, while others are urging users to take a break from social media altogether.
“I’ve been hearing a lot of people say that once TikTok is gone, you’re just going to cut social media out of your life and I encourage that – it’ll probably be really healthy for you,” said Jack Ryan, a creator who has 2 million followers on TikTok, in a video that he posted on Thursday to express his gratitude to his fans for their support.
On Instagram, I do have a profile. Despite the fact that I have a sizeable following on that platform, you should not follow me on Instagram,” Ryan continued. “You shouldn’t get on there. The condition is known as brain rot. “It’s revolting.”
In a video, Jonas Gindin, who has more than 400,000 followers on Tiktok, revealed that around a year and a half ago, he was working as a waiter in Los Angeles as he was attempting to pursue a career in acting. The odds were not looking good for him.
Gindin has stated that he has been able to produce content on TikTok on a full-time basis after establishing a following on the platform.
It’s been a ride, man,” Gindin added. “If we’re fried, it’s been a ride.” “It means the world to me whenever I come across someone who has commenting something positive, bro.”
Source : CNBC news
