TikTok developers see their app as a crucial place for the marginalised and warn of the potential economic consequences of banning it

Washington: Almost ten years ago, Alex Pearlman gave up on his aspirations to pursue a career in stand-up comedy and moved from the stage to an office cubicle where he worked in customer service. Then he began sharing sporadic jokes and political and pop cultural criticism on TikTok. After gaining just over 2.5 million followers, he left his nine-to-five job and just scheduled his first national tour.

A bipartisan measure voted by the House of Representatives on Wednesday would force the popular video app to be banned nationally if its China-based owner, ByteDance, doesn’t sell its interest. Pearlman is among the numerous TikTok producers around the US who are horrified by this plan. The measure must still pass the Senate, where its future is not entirely certain.
In addition to claiming TikTok has evolved into an unmatched forum for conversation and community, content producers claim a ban would negatively impact many individuals and companies that depend on the site for a significant amount of their revenue.
Living outside of Philadelphia, Pearlman claimed TikTok has changed his life by enabling him to follow his dreams, support his family, and spend his newborn son’s first three months of life at home. Only two weeks of paid paternity leave, or three weeks off, were available to him in his customer service position.
“I don’t take a day for granted on this app because it’s been so shocking,” Pearlman, 39, said. “In actuality, over the last four years, TikTok has been the main force behind American social media. If TikTok disappears tomorrow, something else will take its place. Congress is unable to determine whether that would be better or worse.”
Since its 2016 introduction, TikTok has seen exponential growth in popularity, outpacing the growth of Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook. Legislators, law enforcement, and intelligence officials have expressed concerns about the app’s security, the suppression of content that would be detrimental to the Chinese government, and the potential for the platform to encourage pro-Beijing propaganda. TikTok has refuted all of these claims, which have led to the push to remove the app from Chinese authority.
The US government hasn’t yet shown any proof that TikTok gave Chinese officials access to user data from US users.
The announcement coincides with a sharp increase in digital marketing due to the epidemic, which caused a record number of individuals to stay at home and consume and produce content.
A 29-year-old Charlotte resident named Jensen Savannah started posting videos on TikTok of her trips across the Carolinas during the epidemic. Since quitting her position in sales for telecoms, she has increased her income as a full-time influencer.
“‘Social media influencer’ is almost to be looked at as the new print and the new form of radio and TV advertising,” she said. “It’s going to bring your dollar much farther than it is in traditional marketing.”
According to some designers, it functions as a kind of digital equaliser, giving people of colour and other underrepresented groups a platform to be seen and given chances.
“I have always used Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. But Joshua Dairen, a 30-year-old black content producer from Auburn, Alabama, noted that TikTok was the first platform where you could discover someone who looked like you and represented you in any manner. Dairen creates movies about the history, urban legends, and ghost tales of his home state.
He liked studying the paranormal as a child, but he didn’t see many black people working on the subject. Being visible on TikTok has opened doors for freelance writing and contributed to films about unexplained mysteries and paranormal events. Additionally, Dairen’s app provided him the freedom and self-assurance to build his own coffee shop, where he receives at least one daily visitation from admirers of his work.
The ban on TikTok, in his opinion, creates “a dangerous precedent about how much power our highest levels of government can wield.”
Some claim that the software serves as a social and financial safety net.
During the epidemic, Chris Bautista, a Los Angeles food truck entrepreneur who supplies food to film and television productions, began utilising TikTok to interact with LGBTQ+ people and provide support to individuals who may be struggling.
Growing up in a strict Christian neighbourhood outside of Los Angeles, Bautista, now 37, waited until his late 20s to come out. During his youth, he had mental health issues and contemplated ending his life. His goal was to provide a platform that he himself could have used as a teenager, demonstrating that he, too, could enter that dark place and emerge as a “well-adjusted, confident person.”
According to Bautista, “I just find the corners of TikTok that I find myself in to be so wildly important and profound,” and she expressed her sadness about the app’s potential shutdown.
Although Bautista didn’t start posting with the goal of making money off of the experience, projects related to the app provided funding at the ideal moment. Without the additional money he made via TikTok during the epidemic and the subsequent strikes in Hollywood last year, his company would have closed.
Concerns over the app’s addictive qualities have been voiced almost since its launch, particularly with regard to younger audiences whose brains are still growing. Former private school teacher and administrator Marcus Bridgewater, who runs his own company and publishes TikTok gardening videos, believes Congress should concentrate on these concerns rather than whether Chinese ownership of the app exists.
“Social media is an effective tool,” Spring, Texas, resident Bridgewater said. “And powerful tools are just that: they are capable of helping us transcend ourselves, but in their transcendence, they’re also capable of completely severing us from those we love.”
According to Pearlman, he has long been worried that lawmakers will target TikTok. He likened learning about the House decision to ultimately receiving a call informing oneself that a sick loved one had passed away.
“The part that’s disturbing to me is that, for a lot of Americans, TikTok and social media in general are a release valve; they’ve kind of become a default complaint box,” he said. “So to many people, it feels like they’re trying to ban the complaint box instead of dealing with the complaint.”