A looming U.S. TikTok ban is starting to sink in for content creators whose livelihoods rely on the popular video app.
The ban is expected to take effect on Jan. 19, after the Supreme Court heard arguments Friday about the move following months of debate. Congress has argued for a ban due to privacy concerns with Chinese parent company ByteDance, while TikTok lawyers argue a ban would violate users’ free speech rights.
Washington, D.C.-based wedding stylist Kati Kons, who has been posting about the ban on her TikTok handle @portraitofabrideonfire, says she’s in danger of losing her business.
“It really hit me where I was like, 90 per cent of my business comes from TikTok. Ninety per cent of my clients,” she said. “I don’t think I’ve had a single client inquiry come in from Instagram.”
Kons has been posting on TikTok for about a year to more than 23,000 followers about queer wedding fashion and politics, and says it’s opened up more doors than she ever thought possible.
She has been encouraging her TikTok followers to move over to her Snapchat and Bluesky accounts, with some success.
More recently, Kons has been urging people to boycott Meta platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Threads, as well as X, Google, YouTube and LinkedIn, for lobbying in favour of the TikTok ban.
“I just prefer to see a consequence from them not listening to people,” she said.
Supreme Court justices on Friday probed the nature of TikTok’s speech rights and the government’s concerns over national security. Joanne Molinaro, U.S. full-time TikTok content creator, says to ‘single out TikTok seems arbitrary,’ adding that the potential ban is going to ‘hit the bottom line’ of small business and creators.
She says the government pushing the ban is indicative of a “massive” disconnect between politicians and the American public.
That sentiment is shared by Nikita Redkar, a Brooklyn, N.Y.-based comedian who has nearly 800,000 followers as @nikitadumptruck on TikTok.
She says content creators are angry.
“There’s a cost-of-living crisis, there’s a climate crisis, there are so many crises, but somehow the entire U.S. government banded together to vote on this,” Redkar said. “It seems a very obvious way to control the narrative.”
TikTok expected to be removed from app stores
Under the law, TikTok will be banned on Jan. 19 unless ByteDance divests of the app, which it’s shown no indication of doing. If the ban takes effect, the app is expected to be removed from app stores, and its 170 million American users will no longer be able to receive updates for it. People can still keep it on their phones, but it will degrade over time without updates, and the company may choose to block its users from accessing it before that happens.
U.S. president-elect Donald Trump has suggested he is no longer in favour of the ban, however, opening the possibility of a reversal when he takes office on Jan. 20.
Another Chinese short-form video app, RedNote — called Xiaohongshu in China — has shot to the top of the Apple app store charts in the U.S., as some TikTok creators migrate there in anticipation of the ban.
Founded in 2013, Rednote has about 300 million active users, though some worry it, too, could be banned in the U.S. for the same reason as TikTok.
Redkar, the comedian, started posting on TikTok during the pandemic in 2021, and discovered an audience beyond what she was able to tap into in several years of doing stand-up comedy.
She found a niche explaining the news in a comedic and easy-to-understand format, tackling contentious issues as if she were relaying “high school drama” and gossip. Redkar has since found a strong community of other political content creators, and makes money through brand deals on the platform.
She says the reality of the ban is just starting to sink in.
“It’s definitely scary. I don’t really think I’ve fully grasped what could happen, but now I’m kind of prepping for the reality of it,” she said. “I am beginning to talk to my audiences about transferring to other apps, and then just sharing my honest thoughts on it.”
Redkar is nervous that her political content won’t play as well on other platforms like Instagram Reels, and says she’ll also miss TikTok’s video editing features.
‘It’s going to be messy’
“I think my revenue will be affected majorly if I’m only being paid to advertise it on Instagram,” she said. “Now I kind of have to rush and get on board some of these other apps, like YouTube, but then there’s going to be a big influx of people heading to YouTube…. It’s going to be messy for a bit.”
Redkar hopes the ban will be stalled, giving creators more time to figure out their next moves or develop a new app that mirrors the “community” feel of TikTok.
TikTok hasn’t been banned in Canada, though it was ordered to shut down its Canadian operations last year, and federal public servants haven’t been able to access the app on government phones since February 2023.
Content creators in Canada are also feeling the uncertainty, with American brand deals and a sizeable chunk of their followers up in the air.
Joey Pittari, a Toronto-based model who has 3.5 million TikTok followers with the handle @joewoahy, has been on the platform since its beginning, and was previously on Musical.ly before it merged with TikTok.
Pittari says he doesn’t know where his career would be if he hadn’t gained his social media following doing comedy skits and lip-synching videos.
“I think we still will get affected [as Canadians] because a lot of our followers are based in America, and a lot of these brands are American,” he said.
Pittari says he’s trying to stay positive and hopes it won’t affect him too much. Meanwhile, he plans to keep pushing content on other platforms and encouraging his followers to come along.
“I mean, that’s all I can really do, right?”
