Connecticut businesses could lose thousands in TikTok ban

Shierka Billips runs SVG On Demand from her basement in the Oakdale section of Montville.

She said TikTok is a huge part of her revenue and she’s made hundreds of thousands of dollars on the app.

“I’m emotional,” Billips said. “I’ve been thinking about it very hard and what it’s going to do for my small business.”

She has nearly 130,000 followers on her TikTok page and said her account has accounted for 60 to 80% of her growth of her revenue.

At Sam’s Barber Shop in Rocky Hill, owner Sam Balija said TikTok has introduced him to a new audience of people and even clients from out of state.

“Everybody wants to see your social media presence to see if you’re a legit as a business,” Balija said.

Balija and Billips are not alone. Connecticut is home to several small and large TikTok accounts and one of the app’s biggest creators, Charli D’Amelio, is from Norwalk.

In the United States, that app has over 170 million users, but the government is citing national security and data concerns as the reason for the ban. The app is owned by Chinese company ByteDance.

“TikTok itself is a U.S. based company,” Bree Fowler, cybersecurity writer at CNET, said. “It’s ByteDance, its parent, that is based in China, and the U.S. government doesn’t want ByteDance having any type of involvement with TikTok.”

TikTok is headquartered in Los Angeles and Singapore, but also has an office in New York City.

The ban is set to take place on Sunday and while TikTok’s lawyers appeared in front of the Supreme Court last week, it’s not looking likely that they’ll reverse the decision.

ByteDance has until Jan. 19 to divest in TikTok or shut down the app. Experts predict that once the Jan. 19 deadline approaches, the app will still be available on users’ phones who already have it downloaded, but people may face glitches or bugs.