The U.S. Supreme Court will decide TikTok’s fate as a potential ban looms.
SAN DIEGO — TikTok has revolutionized content consumption, gaining popularity with its short, engaging and creative videos. The future of the platform in the United States is up to the Supreme Court’s decision. TikTok faces a possible ban unless its American operations are sold by its China-based parent company Byte-Dance.
Davia Matson is aware of the potential ban the platform is facing.
“I have a teen daughter, so she’s 16, and yeah. Her and all her friends are like freaking out if it’s going to go away. She loves TikTok,” Matson said.
Since the pandemic, Emily Drake has been an active user of TikTok. Emily likes the platform’s algorithm for its ability to deliver highly personalized content.
“I’m kind of interested to see what other platforms people will move to. I am not sure about myself, I don’t know,” Drake said.
CBS 8 spoke to Matt Stamper, the CEO of Executive Advisors Group. He provides security advisory services to companies throughout the country. Stamper thinks there could be a couple of things that would happen in the short term if the app gets banned on Sunday.
“One is removing the application from availability in app stores be it on Apple or Android, things of that nature. I would also think that over time, you would end up having a migration, so if there isn’t some sort of U.S.-based ownership approach, I think you would find other platforms other social media then use, that would kind of take over that audience,” Stamper said.
With TikTok’s future uncertain, some users are exploring alternatives. According to the Associated Press, Xiaohongshu, also known as “Little Red Book,” is currently the most downloaded app in the U.S. This surge in downloads suggests it may be attracting users from other platforms, including potentially TikTok.
“Ideally, U.S based would certainly be the preference but privacy protections in Europe are exceptionally vigilant and strong, I think having good privacy by design principals built into the application where people opt-in to share versus the application is granted access to your contacts, to your data, to your files,” Stamper said.
Some of the other alternative apps people are downloading are Instagram, YouTube and Twitch. For a list visit apnews.com.
