For TikTok users, mourning, frustration and clinging to hope as TikTok ban looms

NEW YORK — The U.S. is inching nearer and nearer to a possible TikTok ban — with the nation’s highest court upholding a law that is set to halt new downloads of the app beginning Sunday. However many questions round what precisely this ban will appear like, and whether or not it can truly be enforced, stay.

That places thousands and thousands of customers and content material creators in limbo — notably influencers and small business owners who’ve come to depend on the mega-popular social media platform as a supply of revenue.

Amongst these people is Terrell Wade, a comic, actor and content material creator with 1.5 million followers on TikTok beneath the deal with @TheWadeEmpire. Wade, who has turned his TikTok presence right into a full-time job, stated he expects “two days of chaos” because the Sunday deadline nears.

“At this level, I actually don’t know what to consider,” Wade instructed The Related Press.

In a unanimous decision on Friday, the Supreme Courtroom upheld a federal regulation that can ban TikTok until it’s offered by its China-based guardian firm earlier than Jan. 19 — ruling {that a} threat to nationwide safety posed by the platform’s ties to China overcomes First Modification considerations about limiting free speech on and by the app.

A sale doesn’t seem imminent, that means the ban ought to go into impact Sunday. However the ruling additionally arrives simply days earlier than the inauguration of a brand new president.

President Joe Biden’s administration has maintained that TikTok should change its possession to handle nationwide safety considerations, however signaled that it won’t enforce the law on Sunday, the Democrat’s ultimate full day in workplace. On Friday, White Home Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre stated that actions to implement the regulation will fall to the brand new administration attributable to “the sheer reality of timing.” In the meantime, Republican President-elect Donald Trump, who as soon as also tried to ban TikTok, has now vowed to protect entry to the platform. However what his choices can be following Monday’s inauguration stays unclear.

Amongst different factors of confusion is what a ban on TikTok will appear like. Consultants have stated the app won’t disappear from current customers’ gadgets as soon as the regulation takes impact. However new customers received’t be capable of obtain it and updates won’t be out there. That can ultimately render the app unworkable, the Justice Division stated in courtroom filings.

All of that is “a reminder to the creator group that social media platforms can come and go,” notes Kelsey Chickering, a principal analyst at Forrester, stressing the disruptions TikTok creators and influencers will really feel if the ban takes impact. If entry is misplaced, she provides, many must pivot and re-build their presence on different platforms.

Whereas bracing for a possible Sunday ban, Wade is amongst creators who hope that one thing occurs to avert the shutdown, though he thinks he has sufficient followers on different platforms to remain afloat.

“I’m nonetheless remaining optimistic,” he stated.

Nonetheless, many proceed to precise fears over the potential of dropping TikTok.

Janette Okay, a full-time content material creator primarily based in Los Angeles, says TikTok is the first platform she makes use of right now. As an influencer and in addition an artist, she says the platform has helped her make model offers and promote her music — bringing “alternatives that I by no means believed I may expertise in my lifetime.”

Okay was additionally amongst influencers who TikTok brought to Washington in 2023 to foyer for the preservation of the app, and remembers a ban being mentioned way back to 2020. And as somebody who’s Asian, the efforts to ban TikTok over time have additionally felt “just a little xenophobic,” she added.

“I hear all these various things, and I don’t know what to consider — in order that’s the place I’m very annoyed. I’m confused. I’m upset,” Okay stated. “It’s a fantastic app, it’s introduced so many individuals collectively, it’s modified lots of people’s lives, and for it to simply be taken away like that feels … so not American.”

Jordan Smith, a former WNBA participant who operates The Elevated Closet in Austin, Texas — a clothes model for tall ladies — is determined by TikTok and TikTok Store to search out clients that match her area of interest demographic that’s troublesome to particularly market to in any other case.

“On TikTok I’ve simply been capable of finding that viewers a lot simpler,” she stated.

She fears dropping TikTok will damage her enterprise, and she or he’ll miss it personally, too. So she’s following what individuals are saying will occur on Sunday and hopes a ban is likely to be diverted.

“It sort of looks like Biden’s sort of pushing it off to Trump,” she stated. “So individuals have hopes that possibly now we have a number of extra days and it received’t go darkish on Sunday, however I don’t actually know.”

Alejandro Flores-Munoz owns a catering enterprise within the Denver space known as Combi Taco, or @combicafe on TikTok. TikTok helped him attain clients with out spending cash on advertising and marketing, he stated. He was optimistic that TikTok would stick round till he heard Friday’s Supreme Courtroom determination.

“Up till right now, I used to be extraordinarily optimistic. And after right now’s Supreme Courtroom determination to uphold the ban or the sale of TikTok, I weigh my choices,” he stated. “However actually, it’s very disheartening, particularly as a result of I really did depend on the app for my enterprise and my progress of my enterprise.”

Going viral on TikTok helped Ruben Trujillo market his Cafe Emporos Coffeegrams, a card that features espresso, tea or scorching chocolate. He stated he’s rising annoyed with the ever-evolving politics surrounding the ban.

“It’s sort of like they preserve placing the ball in one another’s courtroom, however who’s going to make the choice?” he stated. He stated small enterprise house owners are instructed to “be artistic, pull your self up by the bootstraps,” he stated. “And lots of people did that, and it’s like these bootstraps are being minimize now.”

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Related Press reporters Haleluya Hadero in South Bend, Indiana, and Mark Sherman in Washington contributed to this report.