It’s hard to imagine what would happen if the era-defining short-form video platform disappeared overnight—but that makes it all the more important to try.
Last month, the U.S. issued an ultimatum to TikTok, owned by Chinese AI company ByteDance: either sell the app or face a federal ban. While we await ByteDance’s response, over 25 U.S. states have already banned the app from state employees’ devices, and Congress is working on potential legislation in case ByteDance refuses to sell. This is a complex situation, as there is no precedent for banning a website or social network in the U.S., making it difficult to envision a TikTok-less future.
The leading contender for legislation to kill TikTok is the Restricting the Emergence of Security Threats That Risk Information and Communications Technology Act, or the Restrict Act, which has bipartisan support and the endorsement of the Biden administration. However, it is broad in scope and could potentially apply to any type of tech product, with proposed penalties of up to 20 years for users caught accessing sites falling under its jurisdiction, even if accessed via virtual private network or by downloading an app like TikTok while abroad and returning to the U.S. with it on their phone, as pointed out by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Imagining a future where access to TikTok is blocked raises significant questions about how Americans interact with the internet and vice versa. It would signify a fundamental shift in reliance on the First Amendment for unfettered internet access and would create a future where no platform is truly safe.
The central issue in the push to ban TikTok is the accessibility of data from the app in China. There has been debate about the relationship between TikTok, available outside of China, and Douyin, ByteDance’s original Chinese video-sharing platform. While ByteDance maintains they are separate entities, with largely similar features but some additional tools for augmented reality and e-commerce in Douyin, the murkiness of this relationship has contributed to the current situation.
My thought：
TikTok, with approximately a billion monthly active users worldwide, has become the fourth most popular social network in the U.S. Its impact has been particularly felt in the music industry, as viral TikTok clips have changed how new artists are discovered, prompting Spotify to redesign its interface to compete. This rising popularity of TikTok has also caused other social platforms to react, with Meta Platforms pushing Reels on Instagram, YouTube launching Shorts, and Twitter introducing a new timeline called For You. While the U.S. government has not blocked TikTok, other countries like India, Pakistan, Russia, and Hong Kong have issued temporary bans or banned it altogether for various reasons.
The question of whether TikTok would still be relevant without its massive U.S. user base is complex. While the U.S. is not the top country in terms of TikTok’s market penetration, it is the most visible market for the app globally, and a ban could potentially inspire other countries to follow suit. Losing access to TikTok would pose challenges for U.S. creators in finding alternative platforms to stay relevant, as the app has reshaped the internet landscape with its short-form video format. Even if TikTok were unavailable, short-form video content would still thrive, and users could easily download TikTok videos and upload them to other platforms. Thus, the question arises whether it is worth fundamentally altering the legal architecture of the U.S. internet solely due to concerns about the popularity of one Chinese-owned app. Perhaps, the issue is not solely about TikTok, but about larger shifts in global web culture and the evolving dynamics of internet platforms.
Citation：https://www.theinformation.com/articles/what-comes-after-tiktok?rc=ixubfq
U Penn Social Book 
Very interesting articles from “The Information.” Please print out the full articles that you source from this site because it has a paywall and we can’t access it. Much appreciated. Thanks.
Last month, the U.S. gave TikTok a choice—either its owner, Chinese artificial intelligence company ByteDance, has to sell it, or it will face a federal ban.
As we wait to see how ByteDance responds, more than 25 U.S. states have gone ahead and banned the app from state employees’ devices. And in the event that ByteDance won’t sell, Congress is currently workshopping a legislative fix.
That is no simple proposition—there is no precedent for banning a website in the U.S., let alone an entire social network, which makes it somewhat daunting to even imagine what a TikTok-less future might be like.
THE TAKEAWAY
Attempts to ban TikTok elsewhere have resulted in predictable creator diasporas, but that doesn’t make YouTube Shorts or Instagram Reels true replacement platforms.
Right now, the Restricting the Emergence of Security Threats That Risk Information and Communications Technology Act, or Restrict Act, is the most popular contender for TikTok-killing legislation. It has huge bipartisan support and the endorsement of the Biden administration. It’s also extremely broad and, as Ars Technica recently wrote, “it could apply to nearly any type of tech product.” The most eye-popping part of the bill is a proposed sentence of up to 20 years for users caught accessing sites that fall within its scope, whether that’s via virtual private network or even, as the Electronic Frontier Foundation points out, by downloading an app like TikTok while in a foreign country and returning to the U.S. with it on your phone.
Still, it’s useful to game out exactly what a ban might look and feel like. If the U.S. does find a way to block access to Gen Z’s favorite website, it would mean a fundamental shift in the way Americans relate to the internet and vice versa. It would mean we can no longer count on the first amendment to guarantee unfettered access to the web. And, simply put, it would mean a future where no platform was truly safe.
The question of whether data from TikTok is accessible in China is at the heart of the current push to ban it. Much has been made about the murky relationship between TikTok, which is available outside China, and Douyin, ByteDance’s original Chinese video-sharing platform, although ByteDance maintains they are entirely separate entities. I’ve used both and the features are largely the same, though Douyin has some more sophisticated tools for augmented reality and e-commerce.
As of this year, TikTok is the fourth most popular social network in the U.S., with around a billion monthly active users globally. It has spawned an entire new class of influencer and, while it has had a tremendous impact on a lot of industries in the U.S., its effect has been felt the most in the music industry. Viral TikTok clips have upended the way the U.S. discovers new artists to the point that Spotify redesigned its entire interface in an attempt to compete.
And TikTok has caused a similar existential panic among existing American social platforms. In response to the app’s rising popularity, Meta Platforms started aggressively pushing Reels on its Instagram platform, YouTube launched Shorts and, after Elon Musk purchased Twitter last year, that platform rolled out a new timeline called For You—similar to what TikTok calls its main feed.
Given its meteoric rise, it’s hard to imagine the federal government could actually successfully block it. Other countries already have, though, and those attempts give us a couple of good examples of what such an extreme event might actually feel like.
Most notable among these is India. In 2020, the world’s second most populous country booted more than 200 Chinese-made apps from its internet, including TikTok, which had 200 million Indian users at the time. According to an investigation by Rest of World, local startups tried to fill the void quickly and deployed TikTok copycats that largely failed to take off. Many casual creators stopped making content altogether, while bigger, more established posters moved to competitors like Reels or Shorts. Many of them said they have yet to recover the followings they had on TikTok.
Pakistan has issued a few temporary TikTok bans over the past few in response to “immoral and indecent content.” Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Russian users lost access to TikTok—they can still view old content, but they can’t upload anything new. TikTok banned itself in Hong Kong, meanwhile, after China imposed a draconian new security law there in 2020, in an apparent effort to distance itself from the Chinese Communist Party. As in India, a similar creator diaspora formed on Reels and Shorts, according to CNN. But the feeling persists that those creators could have built bigger, more engaged audiences if they had still been allowed on TikTok.
The closest corollary to a TikTok ban we have in the U.S. is probably the death of Vine, the short-form video app that laid much of the groundwork for TikTok’s quick success. It never released solid figures about its user base, but it was estimated to have had around 200 million users globally at its peak. In 2016, according to a study from market research firm GWI, it had over 50 million users in the U.S.
That year, the 6-second looping-video app shut down after its biggest creators organized a walkout following a denial of basic creator contracts that would have split revenue between them and the platform. One of the primary refuges Vine creators found was Musical.ly, a lip-syncing app that ByteDance eventually absorbed and relaunched as TikTok in 2018. But it took years for TikTok to break through and become a true Vine replacement. TikTok announced last month in response to government pressure that it had around 150 million users in the U.S. So it’s not a stretch to imagine that a TikTok ban would lead to a similar protracted walkabout.
The more complicated question to answer is whether TikTok would be as relevant without its massive U.S. user base. Interestingly, as of January of this year, according to Insider Intelligence, the U.S. is not the top country on TikTok, at least by market penetration—Thailand is. If Americans were to suddenly vanish from TikTok’s user base, Vietnam, Mexico and Brazil would vie for the U.S.’s No. 2 spot. Still, the U.S. is easily the most visible market for the app globally, and a ban might inspire more countries to follow suit.
If TikTok stays as relevant as it is now even without U.S. creators, that would signal a drastic shift in global web culture, a new world in which Americans are no longer at the forefront of internet happenings—though any K-pop fan would tell you that’s not too crazy to imagine.
As we saw in India and Hong Kong, half the secret of building an audience online is going where people already are. Were U.S. creators to lose access to TikTok, their task would not simply be about finding an app with a similar interface and format to post content on. It would be about staying relevant. As much as Google and Meta would love to convince us their short-form video apps are just as good as TikTok’s, the reality is that if they were, we wouldn’t be so concerned about losing TikTok in the first place.
Ironically, if TikTok suddenly became unavailable in the U.S., it would leave behind an internet landscape that has been completely rebuilt in its image. Even without TikTok, short-form video would still be king. There is also nothing in the Restrict Act—or any other proposal from Washington—to address the fact that users can easily download TikTok videos and upload them to other platforms. So yes, maybe our data would be safe without access to the app, but we would likely still see plenty of TikTok content from outside the U.S. across all their feeds. We just wouldn’t be able to make any of our own.
That makes you wonder if it’s worth fundamentally altering the legal architecture of the U.S. internet just because we’re uncomfortable with the popularity of one Chinese-owned app. Maybe—just maybe—all this ado isn’t really about TikTok, at all.
Good distillation. Well done.