As many are no doubt aware, the ban on TikTok in the United States was recently upheld, and it is to go into effect soon. Possibly by the time you read this.
I myself never used TikTok. I never had much use for it, as I’m not the sort who creates video shorts most of the time. But I do know a lot of people used it and greatly enjoyed it, and are greatly upset by this turn of events.
As to why this is happening? Well, I don’t feel like looking up or going into the long, painful story here. But let’s just say it’s paranoia about TikTok’s point of origin (China) and user data being accessed by the Chinese government, possibly combined with certain other platforms’ owners being concerned about TikTok’s rise in popularity the past four or five years, and not wanting to have it as competition. Of course these platforms’ owners have a lot of money and influence over our government, and given that the Supreme Court decision was unanimous, it seems likely the ban would have gone into effect regardless of who won the 2024 election.
Of course these other platforms also have ‘shortform’ video options called ‘shorts’ and ‘reels’, but I’m fairly sure those came about AFTER TikTok exploded in popularity in an attempt to lure people back to those platforms.
In any case, though I never used TikTok myself, I know many people did, and there was a thriving community of people there sharing their short fun videos showing off cosplay, or relating fun facts, or any other silliness they could think of. It’s never a good thing when a community gets broken up.
However, I do think this is a reminder that people should never put all their eggs in one basket. Many TikTokers already had a presence on the other platforms that have ‘shorts’ and ‘reels’ options, both for greater exposure and to have something to fall back on should the TikTok ban actually happen. (And the ban’s been talked about for many years now – it was only in the past year that it became ‘a very real possibility that could become reality soon’). So yes, it’s the end (presumably until one of the other platforms buys TikTok out or something), but many TikTokers were prepared for the moment.
We should never take any of our platforms for granted. The coming year is going to be full of chaos and uncertainty. None of us knows what’s going to happen with the platforms we currently use, whether they will still be around or whether they will be twisted into something we don’t recognize or are practically unusable. We should always have something to fall back on just in case things go wrong.
In any case, this is a sad situation for all of TikTok’s users and fans.
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