Tik Tok faces uncertain future over ban

Tik Tok, the popular video-sharing site with more than 1.5 billion monthly active users worldwide, revolutionized the US app market, showing how social media could offer entertainment, short videos and shopping all in one place, say experts.

"It certainly has brought something new to the to the US." Z, John Zhang, a professor of marketing at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania told China Daily.

But despite the app's widespread success, it still faces uncertainty over a potential congressional ban signed by former US president Joe Biden in 2024, which states that ByteDance, its Chinese-based parent company, must divest the app and sell it to a US company or face a ban over national security concerns.

In April, the Trump administration granted the app its second 75-day extension this year so that it could find a US buyer. The reprieve will expire in mid-June.

TikTok, available in 150 countries, was downloaded more than 875 million times in 2024. Its US revenue reached $10 billion in 2023, and American adults spend more than 53 minutes on it on average per day, two studies found.

A spokesperson for ByteDance said in an April statement that it had "been in discussion with the US government regarding a potential solution for TikTok US. An agreement has not been executed. There are key matters to be resolved. Any agreement will be subject to approval under Chinese law."

TikTok CEO Shou Chew said in an April 22 video: "Rest assured we will do everything in our power to ensure our platform thrives as your online home … for years to come. There's tremendous value in this app, and if we close that, it will be a pity."

Launched in the US in 2018, TikTok quickly amassed more than 170 million American users, according to the Pew Research Center.

Regardless of its future, it has changed social media and even spurred international competition.

Instagram, the picture-sharing site, owned by Facebook parent Meta, started its video platform Reels in 2020 in 50 countries, including the US, to compete with TikTok.

In April, Instagram launched its standalone "Edits Video" creation app. The platform will allow creators to shoot and edit video similar to TikTok or CapCut.

"We think it's our job to create the most compelling creative tools for those of you who make videos," Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, said in a Reels video statement in January.

Another US offering that rivals the Chinese app is YouTube's Shorts, a platform to create and share short-form videos. Other Chinese-owned apps, such as RedNote and Lemon8, the latter owned by ByteDance — also are vying for attention over TikTok.

However, one of the most unique aspects of TikTok is that it works alongside businesses both locally and internationally to sell goods to customers on the app. That is something that was fairly unusual to US digital audiences beforehand.

It's estimated that there are more than 7 million US businesses on TikTok, which helped it support over $24 billion in gross domestic product and 224,000 American jobs, according to a report by Oxford Economics.

Felicia Jackson, owner of CPR Wrap, a business that helps people as they perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation, said that she made more than $300,000 in just two days thanks to the app.

The method of entertaining people and encouraging them to shop seamlessly in an app has been successful for Douyin, the domestic Chinese version of ByteDance's TikTok and JD, a Chinese e-commerce company owned by Tencent, with revenues of more than $152 billion in 2023.

Professor George S. Yip, emeritus professor, Imperial College London, and distinguished visiting professor at Northeastern University in Boston, said that TikTok has gained international popularity by following apps like Douyin.

"The Chinese are very good at all-in-one apps, and [TikTok is] simply following that practice in the US," Yip told China Daily.

Smaller content creators and influencers who review or market merchandise from the TikTok shop also are making money and receiving commissions on goods sold.

"A lot of people would get hurt [if TikTok closes]," Zhang said. "There's no question, because there's a lot of influencers on TikTok, and they're doing really well, and they make a lot of money out of it."

As TikTok continues to seek a US buyer to appease Washington, online retail giant Amazon was said to have thrown its hat in the ring, submitting a bid to the White House to buy it.

In an effort to update its safety features, Adam Presser, head of Operations and Trust and Safety at TikTok, described its latest innovation "Footnotes."

"It will add to our suite of measures that help people understand the reliability of content and access authoritative sources, including our content labels, search banners, our fact-checking program, and more," Presser said in a statement.

belindarobinson@chinadailyusa.com