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On April 24, US President Joe Biden signed a bill into law that could ban Chinese social media app TikTok. The law requires the app to either disassociate from its Chinese parent ByteDance or face a complete ban. While the ban may still take years to come into effect, it has already infuriated the TikTok community. Many creators, having following in millions, have spoken against the law, accusing the government of ruining their livelihood.
Several creators recently travelled to the Capitol to oppose the law and stage protests.
“You’re taking away our First Amendment rights,” said creator Ophelia Nichols, known as “shoelover99” on TikTok. The TikToker has over 12.5 million followers, popular for her lifestyle content.
“TikTok allows small businesses and creators to find their people in their community,” Ophelia was quoted as saying by CNBC.
“People don’t understand. This is a community. It’s a family. Whatever it is that you enjoy or that makes you smile, you will find someone else on the app that loves that too,” she adds.
Anti-govt movement
A movement has erupted on the app itself, where creators have posted above 585,000 videos with the hashtags #KeepTikTok and #SaveTikTok.
Some are accusing the Biden administration of being hypocritical.
“There’s a core hypocrisy to the Biden administration supporting the TikTok ban while at the same time using TikTok for his campaign purposes, said Kahlil Greene, who has more than 650,000 followers and is known on TikTok as the “Gen Z Historian.”
“I think it illustrates that he and his people know the power and necessity of TikTok.”
TikTok over the last few years has become a major source of news and entertainment for the American people.
How powerful are creators?
The app has over 170 million users in the US alone. A Pew Research Center survey found last November that about a third of under-30 US adults relied on TikTok for their daily dose of news. This shows the staggering intensity of influence that the TikTokers wield on the US audience.
The under-30 adult US population is thus most likely to oppose a ban on the app, as per an AP-NORC poll conducted in January. However, amongst all US adults, only 30 per cent are likely to oppose the ban.
ByteDance says no plan to sell the app
Meanwhile, ByteDance in a statement clarified it has no plans to sell the app in the US. TikTok CEO Shou Chew said in a video response that the company isn’t going anywhere. “Rest assured, we aren’t going anywhere.
The facts and the Constitution are on our side, and we expect to prevail again,” he said in the video, posted on X.
(With inputs from agencies)
