One Portland business owner described the app as “word of mouth, on steroids.” Now, she believes she and others must find a way to their community once again.
PORTLAND, Ore. — Editor’s note: On Friday evening, TikTok said it will “go dark” this weekend unless the outgoing Biden administration assures the company it won’t enforce a shutdown. This story was written before that announcement.
Now that the Supreme Court has made the unanimous decision to uphold Congress’ law banning TikTok, U.S. users, content creators and business owners may have to figure out what’s next — and fast.
The high court decision was announced Friday morning, shooting down pushback from TikTok and others claiming that the ban violates the First Amendment.
Now, it’s not entirely clear exactly how users will see the ban enforced as of its original effective date Sunday. The Biden administration released a statement Friday stating in part that, “Given the sheer fact of timing, this Administration recognizes that actions to implement the law simply must fall to the next Administration, which takes office on Monday.”
President-elect Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social that the Supreme Court’s decision was expected and must be respected, and his “decision on TikTok will be made in the not-too-distant future, but I must have time to review the situation.”
The ban came about due to concerns in Congress that China could access American user data and manipulate content, as it’s owned by China-based company ByteDance.
However, some users say the security of their data on TikTok doesn’t particularly concern them.
“There’s American companies that we’ve had issues with,” said Maksim Medvedev, the owner of Griddly Bear, a food truck. He’s referring to the mass collection and sharing of user data that U.S. companies like Facebook have been accused of doing before.
Medvedev made his first TikTok post for his business Thursday. By Friday afternoon, it had over 45,000 views.
“I was like, ‘TikTok is going away, let me just finally get around to it,’ and I posted it for funsies, not expecting much, but it’s getting a fair amount of views, likes and comments and activity,” he said.
He said he would usually just post on Facebook or Instagram, typically getting minimal engagement. He wishes he had started posting on TikTok far earlier and is not in support of the ban.
“I’m not a fan. I get a lot of entertainment from TikTok,” he said. “I’m seeing what it can do to businesses, about the attention it can bring in, the customers it can bring in.”
He said Friday he saw more customers than he usually would on a cold morning, and he assumes it’s due to the app.
Lyndsay Maderis is another business owner, who founded Thairapy PDX. She’s grown her personal and business account on the app, and said it’s been an amazing platform for her.
“If it really goes dark, it is a huge loss for us because this is a major funnel of new clients and exposure for us that will just be taken away,” said Maderis. “It is word-of-mouth on steroids.”
She said she’s gone to RedNote, another app that many TikTok users are flocking to, which is also Chinese owned. Maderis is likewise not worried about the potential of China collecting her data.
“I’m not hiding anything. I’m more worried about my data being sold and monetized on all platforms, and I hope that they regulate misinformation and data use for every site,” she said.
She said at least a third of her customers come from TikTok.
“Support your small businesses because they’re really going to be hurting right now,” she said. “To the people who are mourning, like I am, the loss of that community on TikTok … we found each other once, we’ll find each other again.
“Something has been awoken in us, in free speech and sharing information that you cannot take away, and we’ll find a way to do that again.”
Others, like Rebecca Culver, don’t have the app and don’t allow their kids to use it due to their own personal stances on social media. That said, Culver not in support of the ban.
“I think that it’s important to consider things like national security and all that kind of stuff, but I think that when you start banning things, it becomes kind of a slippery slope,” she said.
She likened it to Americans having the option to buy an item from China, and said people should be able to make their own choice about whether they want to engage or not.
“It should be really, I think, up to the consumer to really manage their use,” said Culver.
This post was originally published on here
