TikTok has declared they will “go dark” in America on Sunday unless the US takes steps to reverse its decision to ban the widely popular social media site.
On Friday the company lost a last-ditch ditch effort to have the ban declared unconstituation on free-speach grounds by the Supreme Court. President Joe Biden has already ordered TikTok to separate from its Chinese parent company ByteDance by January 19.
Legislation ordering the ban – which was first thought up under Donald Trump’s first presidential administration – was passed by Congress last spring with an overwhelming majority, with lawmakers on both sides citing national security concerns.
Chinese law requires organisations based in the country to cooperate with the communist party’s intelligence gathering, leading security chiefs in the US to warn that Tiktok could be used as a vehicle to spy on its 170 million American users.
Will the UK follow their security ally’s lead? What could a TikTok ban in the US mean for users in the UK?
The UK government said there were currently “no plans” to introduce a TikTok ban.
A UK Government spokesperson said on Saturday: “This is a matter for the US government. There are no plans to introduce a TikTok ban in the UK.
“We engage with all major social media companies to understand their plans for ensuring the security of UK data and to ensure they meet the high data protection and cyber security standards we expect.”
TikTok, however, is already banned on government devices due to cybersecurity concerns, signalling that the UK government shares at least some of the same concerns as the US.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer may be swayed to follow Trump’s more hawkish instincts when it comes to his policy on China, much as the UK reportedly did in 2020 when it banned Chinese technology giant Huawei from the country’s 5G network.
Keir Starmer is hoping to forge a relationship with Donald Trump (Photo: Alex Brandon/AP)At the time, British officials privately told Huawei that the ban was being imposed partly for “geopolitical” reasons following huge pressure from Trump, according to the Observer.
Starmer has gone to great lengths to get his relationship with Trump off to a good start, going for dinner with the president-elect in Trump Tower in New York last September.
On Saturday he told the Financial Times: “What matters to me is my relationship with the US and my relationship with President-elect Trump.”
Trump, however, has hinted he may not enforce the TikTok ban. He has not yet made a commitment to have it reversed either, telling CNN: “Congress has given me the decision, so I’ll be making the decision.”
Tiktok’s CEO Shou Chew was invited, and is expected to attend, the President-elect’s inauguration on Monday.
How will the US ban affect UK creators?
Most TikTok influencers earn money from brand partnerships, with rates generally tied to engagement and viewership numbers.
If millions of American users stop using Tiktok that could have serious financial consequences for British content creators.
A TikTok video posted by UK-based content creators the Gilbert Twins featured the text: “Me calculating how many followers I’m going to lose when TikTok is banned in the US”.
@thegilberttwinsAccording to our calculations we’ll have 0 followers left Jk but please don’t go y’all Follow us on the other apps if you still want to see our content. We’ll miss you and hope this isn’t goodbye
♬ Law & Order – Mike Post“So if all of our American followers are gone, how many followers do we have left? We’ve got around 2.1 million followers on TikTok… so we would lose around 500,000 followers. Which is significant,” Carine Gilbert told the Times.
Another British creator Keith Afadi told the newspaper: “I know people who’ve just quit their jobs [to become creators] and then this is about to happen. And now they might need to go back and look at another job. And I’d be lying if I said I haven’t thought about that myself.”
“You do hear the panic and I think maybe that’s why I’m choosing to remain quite calm. Because I guess panic begets panic,” he added.
The biggest impact could be felt by British businesses on TikTok Shop, the platform’s growing e-commerce branch.
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Emily Gallant, founder of mobile retailer eFones said half of its business was done on Tiktok, adding that the company had started selling in America but has suspended that now.
“We have decided to put our expansion plans there on hold,” Gallant said.
Chris Dawson, editor-in-chief of the e-commerce news site ChannelX, said: “While Instagram and YouTube are lining up waiting for TikTok to go dark, the reality is that neither platform can replace TikTok Shop nor the TikTok affiliate network.”
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