For local TikTok users, angst and uncertainty as clock runs out on wildly popular app

TikTok users around the region were greeting the looming U.S. ban of popular social media platform TikTok with emotions ranging from sadness to anger to skepticism, with many arguing that a government ban constitutes a limit on free speech.

“It’s pretty shocking that we’re even thinking about this,” said Ethan Zuckerman, associate professor of public policy, information and communication at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Zuckerman, whose past work has focused on media censorship, said that the TikTok ban is censorship in that it is “limiting access to information,” something the U.S. has historically been very resistant to.

“What’s going on is economic nationalism,” he said.

Following the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision Friday morning to uphold the federal law banning the app on Sunday unless sold by China-based parent company ByteDance Ltd., experts hypothesize that, while the app will likely remain on users’ phones, it will be removed from app stores, and updates will no longer be available.

Christopher Gullen, associate professor and chair of the Department of Communication at Westfield State University, currently writing a book about the impacts of TikTok on tourism, said that without users’ ability to update the app, it would eventually become so buggy, it would be nearly impossible to use.

With Sunday quickly approaching, a sale does not appear to be in ByteDance’s plans, and Gullen says there is good reason for that. The company wants to keep its “secret sauce” — the proprietary algorithm that keeps users coming back for more — a secret.

“The secret sauce is the algorithm that runs the app, and that’s what ByteDance developed,” Gullen said, explaining that the algorithm is “what drives how you engage with your users” as a social platform.

Zuckerman explained that part of what makes TikTok’s algorithm so special to its users is that it organizes consumption around topics rather than around people, similar to how the internet was organized before Facebook was introduced.

“The internet until then had been about hanging out with strangers and hanging out with strangers that shared your interests,” he said. “TikTok brought that back.”

Regardless of whether ByteDance decides to sell the app, the controversy over banning it has opened up discussions that Gullen doesn’t see going away anytime soon — such as how social media will continue to drive the economy in the future, and how digital media literacy among public officials is rapidly growing in importance.

The economy of TikTok

Not only have social media platforms like TikTok been monetized with in-app shopping features and creator rewards programs, they’ve launched careers for online personalities or influencers who make their livings posting online, often selling their own products or engaging in deals with other brands.

Aleah Tarjick, a student at UMass Amherst, has been making TikToks “religiously” since 2016. Over the years, she has accumulated more than 2 million followers on the platform, and it became a “huge source of income” for her.

“Once you’re aware of the money you can make, it is absolutely life-changing money,” she said.

Two months ago, revenue streams from posting on the app allowed the 22-year-old to start looking at apartments in Los Angeles with “crazy” rent, but with a ban going into effect, Tarjick is uncertain she’ll be able to build up her following on a different app to be as robust as it is on TikTok.

“You have to work ten times harder on any other platform to have even a sliver of the success you could have on TikTok,” Tarjick said, explaining that all it takes is one viral video.

Tarjick credits this to the app’s advanced algorithm, which quickly learns user preferences and connects people to creators whose content best resonates with them.

Even if an outside buyer swoops in to claim the app, Tarjick said, “it wouldn’t matter, because without the algorithm, it’s nothing.”

As a student used to working her way through school, it isn’t the income Tarjick is most upset about losing. She describes the app as a “digital diary” connecting people with similar interests in a way that other apps don’t. While she plans to download and repurpose her TikTok content on other platforms, she isn’t confident that she’ll find the same close-knit community she once had.

TikTok has become particularly popular for its many sub-communities, in which creators and consumers of content often recommend places, products or ideas they are passionate about to one another, with its 170 million users in the U.S. alone oftentimes massively influencing market trends in the broader world.

For example, “BookTok” — a corner of TikTok where book enthusiasts share book reviews and recommendations — has become recognized by large publishers and independent authors alike for its ability to lift titles to the status of bestseller.

At Broadside Books in Northampton, bookseller Roz Kreshak-Hayden said “the phenomenon of BookTok has definitely influenced our sales.”

Specifically, Broadside has been selling a lot more “Romantasy” (romance-fantasy) titles, especially those by Sarah J. Maas and Rebecca Yarros, whose works have taken TikTok by storm.

TikTok has also been responsible for driving various trends in areas like fashion and cooking, sometimes with such rapidity that it has come under fire for creating a culture of “micro-trends” and driving overconsumption.

‘TikTok refugees’

When India banned TikTok in 2020, Zuckerman’s lab noted a huge influx of Hindi-language content being posted to YouTube. Indian TikTok creators were taking to the platform in an effort to build back the communities they had lost. This, Zuckerman said, could be the case in the U.S. as well.

“What is likely to happen is a lot of users will start putting short-form content on existing U.S. platforms,” he said.

The TikTok ban, he said, is essentially a “subsidy” to Google and Meta, forcing a competitor out of the U.S. market.

Since the announcement of the TikTok ban, some users have begun moving over to the Chinese short-form social video app Xiaohongshu (which translates to “Little Red Book,” but is often called RedNote) in protest of the ban, often calling themselves “TikTok refugees.” But Zuckerman said he does not anticipate those moving over to RedNote to be the majority of users.

Other TikTok fans have been moving to another ByteDance app called Lemon8, but there is uncertainty surrounding the potential fate of this app in the U.S. due to it being owned by the same Chinese-owned parent company.

Aracelli Sierra, a UMass Amherst student who is searching for a new place to make and consume content after TikTok is gone, has been trying out RedNote, but isn’t sure if it’s for her. As someone who enjoys making and watching content about topics from gaming to cooking, she plans to try out other platforms such as Instagram, YouTube and Twitch, but so far, none of them have been as satisfying as TikTok.

“It’s more important to people than I think others realize,” she said.

In particular, Sierra noted that TikTok served as a major “pillar” of organization for both the Black Lives Matter and Free Palestine movements in terms of disseminating information on a large scale and being able to easily access other activists. Now, she’s unsure where those communities of activism and political organization will regroup.

“You’re taking something from the people that constitutes their First Amendment rights,” she said. “I think it’s a tactic to avoid what’s to come.”

However, William Hood, a sophomore at UMass Amherst, said he is partially looking forward to TikTok going away.

Most of what Hood, 19, sees on the app is news and political content. While he tries to keep his feed diverse and seek out news outside the app to make sure he’s getting a variety of perspectives, he knows that many people don’t. He noted that while the app’s algorithm can quickly help people find like-minded communities, it can just as quickly sense and reinforce biases.

“They build up your bubble pretty purposefully,” he said.

Teddy Hincks, visiting from Boston, said he uses TikTok to watch a combination of educational and entertaining content, and once the ban is enacted, he’ll likely try to use a VPN to continue using the app instead of moving over to another U.S. platform.

Other users online have noted considering the use of a VPN to continue accessing TikTok from the U.S. post-ban, which may allow them to continue using the platform. A VPN works by tunneling a person’s internet traffic through a server in another locale or country, making it appear that the person is logging on from that country.

Alexa Lewis can be reached at alewis@gazettenet.com.