TikTok

‘Disheartening': How South Florida TikTokers feel about looming ban

The creators shared their concerns over the TikTok ban, saying it'll affect their livelihood and communities

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The Supreme Court is giving the green light to a law that looks to potentially ban TikTok in the U.S. They rejected a free speech challenge that was filed by ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok.

In just two days, the company will have to sell its app TikTok to a U.S. developer or face being banned.

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The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the law that requires TikTok to be sold to a US company because of concerns that the Chinese government through ByteDance could manipulate what content users see and also collect the data of all U.S. users.

“Nothing has been proven, and I think it’s important to be cautious with any app that collects so much personal information because TikTok is not the only app that collects that much data,” Amy Ito said.

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Ito has 43,000 followers on TikTok, under the account @nailsbyamyito. She has grown a successful business thanks to the platform.

She says she’ll now be forced to depend solely on Instagram and YouTube.

“Even if YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels allow us to be able to promote our business, I don’t think it’s going to do the same that TikTok has done for us," Ito said.

And others like Natalie Stuart, under the username @nattiemeetsworld, say she has never had concerns with security or data breaches with TikTok

“My Instagram account was hacked years ago, and it was so easy for them to do that," Stuart said. "I have been on TikTok for four years and I have never experienced any sort of feeling of being scared of my information being hacked or stolen.”

Stuart has used her platform to foster community in the classroom and be a resource to others.

“There are just so many things that TikTok gives us, videos, ideas, recipes, that I use in my day-to-day life, that gives me ideas to flourish as a creator, that allows me to share with other people," she said. "And the fact that we aren’t going to have that is disheartening, it’s like, where are we going to get that? So, it’s a matter of everybody moving to different platforms to see if we can keep that up."

In the wake of the ban, Chinese-owned apps like REDNote and ByteDance’s Lemon8 have soared through the app store charts, as a form of protest.

This law would technically impact these applications as well, as it targets apps owned by a foreign advisory, in this case, China.

So, could there potentially be another app on the rise? Guy Garrett the Associate Director at UWF Center for Cybersecurity says it’s up to the users.

"Wherever there is a need for an audience to be gathered, if that audience has a way of bringing advertisers to the party and paying for it, trust me, some entrepreneurs are going to figure it out and do so rather quickly," he said.

Now it’s not clear if when the time comes the Trump administration will enforce this law on those other apps as well. Regarding TikTok, he has stated he would consider issuing an executive order to potentially delay this law from taking effect, giving TikTok more time to find an American buyer.

However, ByteDance has made it clear that even though potential buyers have come forward, TikTok is not for sale.

If by Sunday TikTok is not sold, they’ll be banned. The question is what that is going to look like.

It’s not really clear, but there are two options. The app could go completely dark, meaning if you have the app already downloaded, you won’t be able to open or access it. The second option is you would be able to still have the app, but it would never update.

Regardless, TikTok will not be available in U.S. app stores for new users to download.

If you want to know what you should do before the ban is set to take effect, Garrett gave some tips:

  1. Firstly, take off all the financial information you had on the app and take a screenshot as proof once you are done, so in case you get any fraudulent charges, you have proof
  2. Make sure you download all the data and content you want to keep and transfer it to a hard drive or another platform
  3. Be vigilant. On all social media apps, once something is out there, you can scrub it all you want, but it will always be out there
  4. If you want to completely scrub your account, it takes time and money, and likely an expert to do it for you
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