TIkTok Ban: More Harm Than Good

TikTok currently has over 1 billion active users, that is 1 billion people who depend on the social media platform for various reasons. In the US alone over 5 million business use TikTok to communicate products and services to their customers, if TikTok gets banned in the US, that is over a billion potential customers lost.

The ban on TikTok is not a new development many countries have banned TikTok in the past and the biggest of all was India in 2020 when the company moved to shut down over 50 Chinese companies for failure to protect customers' data and now the US is about to follow suit.

Why does the US want to ban TikTok?

On February 27, 2023, The White House followed the British Parliament, Canada, and France's decisions to government officials ban the app from all official devices while working on a move to ban the app nationwide.

why? the answer is China.

TikTok on its own seems innocent if we go by what TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chaw said while being questioned by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce on Thursday 23rd March 2023. The question of spying and user data mismanagement lies with TikTok's relationships with its parent company ByteDance LTD and Beijing. 

ByteDance Ltd is a $30 billion that manages a range of content platforms and is based in Beijing China. It has been accused in the past of being involved in various forms of allegations surrounding data mismanagement selling secrets to china and selling users' data to third-party companies.

TikTok which is worth over $5 billion wants to then distance itself from both China and ByteDance according to reports, while the US government wants to force a sale of the company to an American business or force TikTok into storing their data on US soil.

The Harm

1. Loss of Revenue: It is well known in Digital marketing spaces that If your business is targeting younger audiences, Then TikTok is your friend. Over 60% of TikTok users in the US are between the ages of 10 and 29. 

If TikTok is eventually banned, businesses will lose access to these audiences, and that is will be a huge loss of revenue.

2. Lack of Competition: When TikTok came into the social media space, it created competition among other social media giants like Facebook and YouTube which prompted them to be more innovative and more user-friendly. Banning TikTok will reduce this.

3. Lack of trust in the American Market by Startups: companies outside the US trying to establish tech companies in the US will be skeptical about the government's influence on businesses in the country.

4. TikTok has also created a lot of Jobs through the platform. Influencers and marketers will have to start over on another social media platform whose quality may not be as rewarding as TikTok and this will eventually lead to a loss of Jobs.

5. No more digital transformation for brands: entertainment and media brands that depend on TikTok for most of their publicity will have to start over with new technologies.

The Good

US will have more control over users' data in the country which they can use for any purpose and their relationship with china will worsen.

The ban on TikTok is creating a buzz in the media space as American Lawmakers are pushing for it. 

It is yet to be seen if the ban will be successful but for now, the consequences are visible.