Dive into the high-stakes legal battle surrounding TikTok's potential ban in the United States. We'll break down the government's concerns, the potential consequences, and what this means for users, creators, and the future of social media.
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00:00For other creators, we're actually seeing some of them consider moving abroad,
00:02those with large international audiences.
00:04Welcome to Ms. Mojo.
00:06And today, we're breaking down the nail-biting legal saga
00:10that could see TikTok banned in the United States,
00:12and what that means for you.
00:14In fact, as we speak, Justice Department attorneys are going head-to-head
00:17with lawyers from TikTok inside the Supreme Court
00:20over a law that will ban the app nationwide.
00:24Who proposed the ban?
00:26This case is urgent with the ban set to start
00:28in just a matter of days now.
00:29After arguments yesterday, it appears the Supreme Court will uphold the ban.
00:34Owned by Chinese tech company ByteDance,
00:36the ubiquitous social network TikTok was met with a negative reception in 2020
00:40by then-President Donald Trump.
00:42Trump's successor, Joe Biden, seemingly agreed with Trump.
00:46Hey, there's a first time for everything.
00:48Biden signed the No TikTok on Government Devices Act at the end of 2022,
00:53calling on ByteDance to sell TikTok to a U.S. firm or be banned entirely.
00:58This country has never taken the step of shutting down a speech platform,
01:03much less such an important speech platform.
01:06Subsequently, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the bipartisan
01:10Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act in 2024,
01:15explicitly putting pressure on ByteDance to sell the platform by January 19, 2025.
01:21Curiously, Trump has since reversed his position,
01:24asking the Department of Justice for more time to negotiate a political solution
01:28before he retakes office.
01:30So are we supposed to ignore the fact that the ultimate parent is, in fact,
01:34subject to doing intelligence work for the Chinese government?
01:38Data privacy concerns.
01:39It is not just about potentially manipulating content, as the hypo contemplated,
01:44but about a foreign adversary actually using the information that users provide to the platform
01:51in order to engage in kind of covert operations, potentially recruitment and espionage.
01:57So why is the U.S. government so worried about an app that most of us use for watching cat videos?
02:02Politicians fear that, because TikTok is owned by a Beijing-based parent company,
02:07it could serve as an efficient pipeline to illicitly send American users' data to the
02:11Chinese government. In addition, the government has expressed concern about the potential for
02:16Chinese disinformation campaigns to gain traction via TikTok and potentially use that
02:21traction to commit election interference on American soil. Said Democratic Senator Mark
02:26Warner of Virginia, quote,
02:28It's not hard to imagine how a platform that facilitates so much commerce, political discourse
02:32and social debate could be covertly manipulated to serve the goals of an authoritarian regime.
02:38As such, the act that President Biden signed into law would target places that TikTok can
02:42be downloaded from, like the Apple App Store and Google Play. These corporations could face
02:47heavy fines if the government feels that they aren't playing ball.
02:51This is actually the core, is that this isn't just what China could do as much so as what other
02:58social media companies can do, which I've always been talking about, to which comes in Gorsuch.
03:02Gorsuch has a really technical understanding of how the TikTok algorithm works.
03:08User safety versus freedom of speech.
03:10I think what the basis of this case is really about the content versus the ownership. And
03:17the First Amendment does not apply to foreign ownership, even if the TikTok lawyers are saying
03:26that, yes, it applies to the American content creators. That's a different argument.
03:32Meanwhile, TikTok has hardly been silent in fighting back against what it claims is the
03:36tyranny of the American government. Michael Hughes, a TikTok spokesman, said in a statement
03:41that the government's efforts to ban the social media platform constituted an attack on the free
03:46speech of U.S. citizens. Noel Francisco, a lawyer for TikTok, argued that the law zeroed in on,
03:52quote, the speech itself. This feared that Americans, even if fully informed,
03:56could be persuaded by Chinese misinformation.
03:59That, however, is a decision that the First Amendment leaves to the people.
04:03Difference in kind from what we're talking about here, which is the 170 million Americans
04:08access to access to their data and ability to manipulate the psychology and opinion of those
04:16Americans. However, Supreme Court Associate Justice Elena Kagan argued that the law only
04:21applies to ByteDance itself, quote, which doesn't have First Amendment rights. Francisco warned that
04:27if the ban is allowed to go through, quote, the government really could come in and say,
04:31I'm going to shut down TikTok because it's too pro-Republican or too pro-Democrat or won't
04:36disseminate the speech I want. And that would get no First Amendment scrutiny by anybody.
04:41Is this something that actually implicates speech and forcing a parent company or a U.S.
04:47subsidiary to divest from a parent company? Or is that a secondary effect? And that's going to have
04:52a much broader impact in the future if we see this come up when it as it relates to other apps.
04:58What will happen on January 20th? It comes down to various ISPs or data storage providers.
05:04That does mean there is an option where in some cases TikTok could move the data to continue to
05:10allow people to access it potentially. But that would be quite cumbersome. And then that raises
05:15its own data security issues for for potential users. As we mentioned a bit earlier, ByteDance
05:21has until January 19th to fully divest from TikTok and sell it off to an American company.
05:27Of course, based on all available information, this is highly unlikely to actually happen.
05:32And TikTok's best chance of remaining active in the U.S. is if incoming President Donald Trump
05:37rushes to its aid. So let's say the worst-case scenario occurs and TikTok is barred from
05:42operating in the United States. There are a few possibilities as to what happens next.
05:47What this means if on January 20th they wake up and the law has gone into effect. But this does
05:53impact the American companies just like it impacts the American users. And I think we have to pay
05:59serious attention to what that means as well. Like we said, the specific wording of the act
06:03banning TikTok would require that the app be removed from digital marketplaces, meaning that
06:08new users would be unable to download it. Well, what about everybody who already has it? While it
06:14seems unlikely that the app would simply go dark at midnight on the 20th, like what happened when
06:19India banned it in 2020, TikTok would likely become buggy, glitchy and just generally difficult to use.
06:25As you still have the app, you're still getting that content on there. But over time, maybe a
06:28couple of months, I'm told by that ex-TikTok employee, it kind of becomes defunct because
06:33it's no longer getting those updates from its parent company. And these tech apps are updating
06:37all the time. You're always getting offers. Hey, do you want to update this app? You would no longer
06:41have that option. However, if you do not have TikTok at all on your phone, you would now no
06:45longer be able to download it at all. What are the influencers to do? Of course, as with any
06:50hot button issue, there are multiple sides to the to ban or not to ban conversation. But there's also
06:56a combined case that involves TikTok users, the millions of Americans who have chosen this to be
07:01their preferred platform for content creation. And could the Supreme Court rule on how the government
07:06impacts those users' choice of venue? On one hand, parents of children and teenagers have expressed
07:12support for the ban, citing their concerns about the types of content that young people are exposed
07:17to, as well as the negative effects of overuse. On the other hand, it's important to remember that
07:22we're in a new age of uncharted digital territory. Being a digital creator is a serious business.
07:28Many, many people are earning very significant levels of income. I think that if you were really
07:33to analyze the current entertainment landscape, digital creators really match up to if you were
07:37to add musicians and actors and athletes into one bucket. And so, you know, TikTok really put it in
07:45a new arena for many people to enter and gain a following. There are people who've been able to
07:49use TikTok as a career starter. Said CNN, based on a TikTok estimate, quote,
07:54Seven million U.S. small businesses that use the app stand to lose $1 billion in revenue,
07:59and around two million creators who would suffer $300 million in lost earnings in just one month
08:04if the app is banned. Creator Eli Rollo voiced her worries about what would happen if TikTok
08:10went away, saying that, quote, I think we would see an uptick in deals on Instagram, but the TikTok
08:15money is definitely the bulk of my income. I know there are folks out there that earn a living,
08:21you know, on TikTok, but it has a national security risk to it. You know, one is the data,
08:31one of the risks. The thing that I'm more concerned about is their ability to manipulate
08:36the population of the United States, especially in time of a conflict.
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08:56What happens next?
08:57They're playing a chicken game, which is they're waiting for the government to blink,
09:03hoping that the courts will blink. And if not, then they're going to unveil some sort of quick
09:08divestment strategy on January 20th. So I think that's what would happen next.
09:12And then we'd be in the next chapter.
09:14Jess Maddox, associate professor at the University of Alabama,
09:17warned that enacting a ban on TikTok could have harmful ripple effects.
09:21Maddox pointed out that while a small handful of influencers have been able to mine extreme
09:26wealth from the platform, quote, the reality is the people who are going to be most hurt by a
09:31TikTok ban are those staunchly middle class Americans who are using this for information,
09:36for entertainment, to grow their business, their following and grow their community.
09:40Certainly most creators who came up on TikTok are predominantly short form creators. Of course,
09:45there's some new names that came up through the live streaming experience as well.
09:48The short form creators are predominantly going to go over to YouTube shorts. They're
09:51going to go over to Instagram reels and to a certain extent to Snapchat as well.
09:54But I really see those three platforms being the main players in this next era of the greater
09:58economy.
09:58With the Supreme Court increasingly leaning in favor of a ban,
10:02the app's sole hope ironically appears to be President Trump.
10:05However, given that the ban is set to take effect on January 19th,
10:09one day before his inauguration, even the commander in chief's hands are tied.
10:13If TikTok influencers' worst fears come to pass,
10:16then a mass migration from TikTok to other platforms like Instagram and YouTube
10:21seems like an inevitability.
10:23What do you think will happen to TikTok? Would you be sad to see it go?
10:49Be sure to let us know in the comments below.
10:53Do you agree with our picks? Check out this other recent clip from MsMojo.
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