Nandini Roy Choudhury, writer
Brief news
- TikTok’s traffic is recovering post-shutdown, currently about 10% lower than pre-ban levels, as users and creators remain engaged despite the app’s temporary removal from U.S. app stores.
- Many TikTok creators are diversifying their presence on other platforms like YouTube and Instagram in response to the uncertainty surrounding TikTok’s future in the U.S., with varying degrees of success.
- Some creators express skepticism about TikTok being permanently banned, citing the unique community and ecosystem the platform offers, which they feel is not replicated on alternatives.
Detailed news
According to Cloudflare Radar, TikTok’s traffic levels have almost returned to what they were before the app’s usage dropped by 85% when it was stopped down earlier this month.
David Belson, who is the head of data insight at Cloudflare, stated in a statement to CNBC, “DNS traffic for TikTok-related domains has continued to recover since service restoration, and is currently about 10% lower than pre-shutdown level.”
The Domain Name System (DNS) is a system that translates website names into IP addresses, which are then used by browsers to access resources on the internet. Cloudflare Radar is the hub of the connectivity cloud company that shows trends and insights on the internet, using DNS to keep track of internet traffic around the world.
After the Supreme Court decided to maintain a law that was signed by former President Joe Biden in April, TikTok was temporarily shut down in the United States. According to that legislation, ByteDance, which is located in China, had to either sell its ownership of TikTok or face a ban on the app in the United States on January 19. As a result, Apple and Google took TikTok off of their app stores in the United States in order to follow the law.
After President Donald Trump said that he would delay the enforcement of the ban, the app returned to service. On his first day in office, he signed an executive order that extended the deadline for the statute by an additional 75 days, moving it to April 5.
In the interim, U.S. investors, including Frank McCourt and Jimmy Donaldson (also known as Mr. Beast), have proposed arrangements that would transfer ownership of TikTok to the United States. Trump has also shown interest in billionaire Elon Musk, who is the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX and the owner of X, as well as Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison, who is interested in acquiring a half ownership stake in the app.
According to Cloudflare’s data, TikTok has been able to keep most of its users and creators in the United States, even though it went offline for around 14 hours and has not been available on the Apple or Google app stores.
As for its alternatives, Cloudflare’s data reveals a jump in traffic the day of the temporary restriction, with levels rising gradually higher in the following week. According to Belson, traffic for alternatives started to climb a week before the anticipated shutdown. This was due to the growing popularity of RedNote, which is known as Xiaohongshu in China.
However, he went on to say that traffic to TikTok alternatives reached its highest point on January 19, the day TikTok came back online.
Belson stated, “After the shutdown ended, DNS traffic quickly decreased and has continued to decline gradually over the past week and a half.”
“Accepted it”
Due to the fact that TikTok’s long-term future in the United States is still unclear, many creators are expanding their online presence to other platforms.
Dylan Lemay, a creator with over 10 million followers on TikTok, stated, “I’ve kind of made peace with it going away.” “When they first threatened to get rid of it, that was my wake-up call to say that I need to be ready in case this ever happens.”
During his first term as president in 2020, Trump was the first to threaten to ban TikTok. Since that moment, Lemay has been working to grow his audience on other platforms in order to save his livelihood as a full-time creator in the event that TikTok is ever formally outlawed.
According to Lemay, he has discovered audiences on different media. He is currently making the most reliable income on YouTube. He has over 5.6 million subscribers on YouTube at the moment, where he uploads both long and short films that have received billions of views.
Lemay stated, “If the worst happens and TikTok disappears, I have this solid foundation with a company like Google.” “That’s not going anywhere.”
Some TikTok creators have been able to find success on YouTube Shorts and Meta’s Instagram Reels, but many others have found that their TikTok work does not perform as well on other platforms.
Noah Glenn Carter, another creator who has almost 10 million followers on TikTok, has not been able to create the same kind of audience on Instagram and YouTube. His following and viewership on both platforms are much smaller.
Carter reached out to firms he had previously collaborated with on brand deals in the weeks preceding up to the ban. Brand deals are agreements in which brands pay creators to promote their products and services on social media. Carter and other creators and managers told CNBC that marketers are either suspending or changing their deals to include other platforms since TikTok’s future is uncertain.
In the interim, Meta has started giving creators opportunities to promote Instagram on TikTok, YouTube Shorts, Snapchat, and other platforms, according to a report from CNBC earlier this month.
Carter remarked, “I don’t know if I can really keep the same rates with my biggest platform going dark.”
Some other creators claim that they do not believe TikTok will ever actually be banned.
Michael DiCostanzo, a creator with over 2.3 million followers on TikTok, stated, “I will believe it when I see it in those 75 days.”
DiCostanzo shares his content on competing short-form video platforms, but he claims that other apps have not yet created the kind of ecosystem that has helped him and others succeed on TikTok.
DiCostanzo stated, “I don’t know if YouTube Shorts or Reels can ever actually replicate that sense of community.” “I don’t believe they would see a significant increase if TikTok were to completely shut down.”
Source : CNBC news
