(CBS DETROIT) – A federal appeals court upheld the federal ban on the social media app TikTok, which is poised to take effect in January.
Both major U.S. parties have long warned that the Chinese government could use TikTok to spy on and collect data from its roughly 170 million American users or covertly influence the U.S. public by amplifying or suppressing certain content. But for content creators like Detroit’s Jon Kung, who makes cooking videos on the app, the worry is that Americans could be losing out on something special.
“It was our window into the outside world during the pandemic, and from there, so many small businesses and so many career paths had sprung out of this,” said Kung.
Friday’s ruling means that TikTok is closer to facing a U.S. ban unless it can convince Chinese parent company ByteDance to sell and find a buyer by Jan. 19. Kung tells CBS Detroit that it would be a crushing blow to the many creators who make a living from the app and other small businesses that use the platform for marketing.
“It’s hard to see how so many who have invested so much of their time and their effort and their passions into creating businesses for themselves as well as creating platforms for themselves through TikTok is about to lose that almost overnight.”
CBS News Detroit spoke to others in Metro Detroit about their feelings about the potential ban.
“That’s really an addictive thing, and I personally deleted it. I got rid of it recently, and my productivity has gone up; I’ve just had a lot of benefits from it,” said Faris Almomani from Canton.
Connor Corby from Canton said, “I still use it. I still think it’s fun, and it gives me something to do when I’m bored. Like, if I’m bored, I don’t know what else I’m going to do but TikTok.”
TikTok and ByteDance are expected to appeal to the Supreme Court, though it’s unclear whether the court will take up the case.
Now it’s unknown what the TikTok ban would ultimately look like. The law doesn’t call for the app to suddenly be removed from users’ phones, but it does require that it be removed from Apple and Google’s app stores, meaning American users could no longer download the app or install any new updates.
