MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) — The deadline is looming for TikTok’s Chinese parent company to sell the social media platform or be banned from the United States.
On Friday, Jan. 10, the US Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case, and signaled support for the law that would ban TikTok starting Jan. 19th.
That could have wide ranging impacts for hundreds of millions of users in the US.
The bipartisan law aims to address serious concerns the Chinese government is using the app to spy on Americans and harvest data.
There’s the silly side to the platform, as an entertaining timewaster, but there’s also a serious side, and business owners say they’ll be significantly impacted.
MK Drayna is a Milwaukee baker who goes by @whisk.chick on TikTok. She told us, “It’s an amazing way to get your stuff out there.”
Drayna says more than half her business comes from people who saw her on TikTok. “I’m right on the edge of 300,000 [followers], I’m about 3,000 away. Almost there.”
Her cake decorating videos have been seen tens of millions of times. “Especially because my work is so visually based. Posting TikTok’s and pictures, that’s all people really want to see before they know they want to order from me.”
But the looming ban would remove an enormous -and lucrative- platform for business owners.
Maricela Cuevas told us, “It’s been a year, and I have gained over 400,000 followers.”
Cuevas goes by @pawperfecta on TikTok. She distills her two-hour dog grooming sessions into one-minute videos that have been seen by tens of millions of people around the world.
The business generated by her TikTok following led to a waitlist of 2,000 people, so she’s opening a new location and adding staff.
Cuevas said, “Now I have the demand to expand my business and start hiring people because I’m just so booked all the time that I need help.”
She also recently started a line of pet treats, but told us, “Now that TikTok might get banned, eventually my sales are going to go down on that.”
Until his resignation in 2024, former Wisconsin Congressman Mike Gallagher chaired the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party.
He told CBS News, “Certainly there’s massive amounts of evidence the Chinese Communist Party has done everything possible to spy on Americans, and TikTok is just one element of that broader campaign.”
Gallagher said TikTok can continue in the us if it simply changes ownership. TikTok says it is not for sale.
As the clock ticks toward the deadline, business owners are thinking of ways to replace what could be lost.
Cuevas said, “It’s an affordable way to boom your business, just by showing a video.”
The ban takes effect Jan. 19 unless the Supreme Court blocks the law. But that seems unlikely after the justice’s questions during Friday’s oral arguments.
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