TikTok Creators Contemplate Life After Possible Ban: ‘It All Can Be Taken Away’

“As a small-business owner, I would be very disappointed if they took this platform away from me,” she said.

TikTok—once known for silly dancing and lip-sync videos—is now a place where many users find community, learn new recipes, discover music and stay on top of world events. News this week that the U.S. could ban TikTok has prompted concern, especially among creators, over what the potential loss of the popular app would mean for their work and communities.

The Biden administration is demanding that the video-sharing platform’s Chinese owners sell their stakes in TikTok or face a possible ban of the app, The Wall Street Journal reported. Lawmakers and other officials say the app, owned by Beijing-based ByteDance Ltd., poses a security threat, citing the possibility the Chinese government could gain access to Americans’ data or influence what they see on the app. 

Ms. Deming, 38 years old, said TikTok did what

Facebook

and Instagram couldn’t: find customers. She said TikTok learns what users like, putting her book review clips in front of people who would be interested. 

Ms. Deming said there are days when about 90% of sales come from the shop’s website, which she attributes to TikTok, where she has a link to her store on her profile. People also come into the store almost daily saying they saw her on TikTok. 

“They had no idea I existed until they saw me pop up on videos,” she said. “Then they become regulars.”

Threats of a U.S. ban on TikTok aren’t new. Former President

Donald Trump

in 2020 sought to ban TikTok unless it came under U.S. ownership. Federal judges blocked the plan before it was later revoked by President Biden. The Biden administration in 2021 also shelved a plan to sell TikTok’s American operations to a group including

Oracle Corp.

More narrow bans have recently been put in place, with Congress and some states and universities barring TikTok from government- or school-owned devices. Governments in the U.K. and New Zealand made similar moves this week. 

TikTok Chief Executive

Shou Zi Chew

told the Journal this week a sale wouldn’t resolve the country’s national security concerns about the app. The company has proposed a multibillion-dollar plan that involves an American partner, Oracle, storing American users’ data and preventing any Chinese influence over what videos Americans see.

“TikTok creators are small-business owners trying to make a living and put food on their tables, teachers educating the next generation of leaders, and everyday innovators who represent the breadth of America,” said

Jamal Brown,

a TikTok spokesperson. “Lawmakers in Washington debating TikTok should hear firsthand from people whose lives would be directly affected by their decisions.”

Some users are already planning for a future without the platform.

Shay Regis,

a 33-year-old lifestyle influencer and secondhand clothing reseller based in Houston, sat down with her husband over the past week to discuss their finances in various scenarios without TikTok.

Mrs. Regis said the majority of brand deals she secures—including press-on nail brand imPRESS, online thrift store

thredUP Inc.

and V8 Energy—are through TikTok, where she has more than 156,000 followers. She has started curating her content for other platforms as well.

Every creator should be considering what they are going to do if TikTok disappears, Mrs. Regis said. 

“Just as fast as we built our platforms up, just as fast as we were able to engage our community,” she said, “it all can be taken away if we do not plan accordingly.”

Carly Shapiro,

a 26-year-old third-year law student in New York, and her three sisters are making similar plans. Their account, @Sistersnacking, which highlights their love of food through restaurant reviews, cooking and travel, grew on TikTok and other platforms during the Covid-19 pandemic. They’re also working on their own website.

“Something that me and my sisters have been working to do for the last few years is making sure we are sustainable outside of these apps that are very fickle, and could be lost in a moment,” Ms. Shapiro said. 

Still, the short-form video content popularized on TikTok is here to stay, said

Mae Karwowski,

chief executive and founder of influencer-marketing agency Obviously. The agency has worked with Mrs. Regis and Ms. Shapiro, among others.

If the U.S. bans TikTok, it’s likely creators will shift their focus to other platforms like Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts, or new apps that may be developed to fill the gap, she said.

“Creators, for the most part, have a game plan,” Ms. Karwowski said.

Vitus “V” Spehar, a TikToker with more than 2.8 million followers for their account @UnderTheDeskNews, said some users may view a U.S. ban as a form of government overreach and censorship. The podcaster said users have voiced those sentiments already in comments on their posts about the potential ban and in other videos on the platform.

Senior U.S. officials have repeatedly cited China’s national-security law, which requires companies there to turn over user data if requested, as a key reason for their concern. Some members of Congress, meanwhile, have voiced concerns TikTok could promote the Chinese government’s preferred American presidential candidate. 

Shifting to another platform isn’t a simple solution for all TikTok creators and users, who have found and built communities on the platform they otherwise wouldn’t have found, said Mx. Spehar, who uses the gender-neutral honorific.

“The loss of community is the big problem,” they said. “It’s going to be a very, very difficult thing to tear apart.”

Write to Jennifer Calfas at [email protected] and Joseph Pisani at [email protected]