Some TikTok users in New Hampshire are thinking about their next moves, in case the app is shut down in the coming days.
The future of the platform is uncertain, and it could be banned as soon as this weekend. Under a federal law passed last year, the Chinese company that owns the app must find a new owner for its U.S. operations by Jan. 19. If that doesn’t happen, it could shut down.
The U.S. Supreme Court recently heard arguments from TikTok that such a ban would be unconstitutional, but it’s unclear whether the court will intervene before this weekend’s deadline.
NHPR spoke to several people in New Hampshire who’ve built large audiences on TikTok about how they use the app, and how they might be affected if they lose access to this social media platform.
An art teacher on the Seacoast
Sarah Jones, a high school arts teacher in Portsmouth, has been using TikTok since 2020. She’s found a big community there. She was teaching remotely during the pandemic, and the platform allowed her to connect with other teachers to figure out how to reach their students.
“Then I started sharing the student artwork, mainly as a way to connect with my students and to hype up their work and give them some praise in a medium that they recognize,” Jones said. “It took off and people really appreciated seeing the student artwork and just like the joy that the kids have working in art.”
Last May, her TikToks got the attention of The Kelly Clarkson show — Jones and several students were flown in to New York City, so that they could be interviewed. Separately, her followers helped to raise $50,000 for a colleague who lost his wife unexpectedly. She’s also secured brand partnerships to help stock classroom supplies.
“I think it’s unprecedented in the U.S. for us to see something like this, and it’s sad,” Jones said. “It’s a big loss of people’s ability to communicate freely with each other and to share their knowledge in such a powerful way.”
Jones is currently migrating her video content to YouTube, in case the ban goes through.
TikTok, she said, has a completely different feel than any other platform. Her content doesn’t get the same traction on Instagram and Facebook, and she also has concerns about supporting those platforms’ parent company, Meta. She said her personal art business account has been struggling to get traction on Instagram for the last 10 years or so.
“It’s really hard to kind of quantify how fast and how powerful it is. I’ve just never seen a quicker real-time connection,” Jones said, of her experience on TikTok. “When something happens, everybody knows about it very quickly on TikTok, and I don’t think that has much to do with what I do. I think my videos just make people happy, because they like seeing the student art, but if we’re trying to explain why people are sad about losing TikTok, it’s because the user experience is different.”
An environmental advocate in Nashua
Doria Brown typically posts environmental content from her home in Nashua, ranging from tips on gardening to practical advice on building resilience to climate change. She said the platform has helped her connect with people in Australia, Dubai and England — anyone who’s interested in environmental content might find her feed.
Brown has been trying to get her New Hampshire legislators to at least postpone the TikTok ban. She wants New Hampshire’s U.S. Senators to support Democratic Sen. Edward Markey’s legislation to extend TikTok for at least another 270 days.
“I’ve called both of my senators to see if they’d be willing to support just an extension of the deadline, so that maybe we can figure something out for the app as a country,” Brown said.
As she sees it, TikTok still has some room for growth — especially when it comes to helping more content creators of color to get recognized. In 2021, a group of Black TikTok creators went on strike because they were not getting credit for their role in starting many popular dances and trends that took off on the platform.
Brown, who is Black, said she’s also used TikTok to raise awareness around social justice issues. Back in 2020, she felt like she needed to bring attention to racial issues that were part of a broader reckoning after the murder of George Floyd.
She’s also gotten sponsorships and worked with companies about carbon neutral programs, which she finds exciting.
“I wouldn’t have been able to get the opportunities to work with those different brands and kind of have that extra income, which results in being able to monetize your account, if I didn’t get on TikTok in 2020,” Brown said.
Also in 2020, Brown joined EcoTok, a group of popular TikTok accounts who focus on environmental issues. She said the experience really helped her learn about how to monetize her account and how to create content more effectively.
“TikTok has brought a lot of communities like that together,” Brown said. “Whether it’s somebody who really likes to do makeup, or whether your activism is social justice, or if it’s climate change or something like that.”
Brown can still earn money by posting on Instagram, she said, but TikTok helped her grow her following there. If the ban comes, she’s thinking about expanding to YouTube, as well. She said she’s going to miss being able to catch up on breaking news — like the Los Angeles fires — and feels TikTok’s potential disappearance is happening at a crucial time.
“I would really hate to see it go during the time when people need that connection most,” Brown said.
A real estate agent in Salem
Kristin Reyes, who lives in Salem, has been using the app since 2022 to promote her real estate business under the account MoveMeToNH. For her, other platforms like Instagram have plateaued in terms of her reach.
Over time, she noticed that traditional realtor content – like high-resolution videos and still images — didn’t really pick up much attention on TikTok.
Instead, she noticed more interest when she started doing faster, more casual walk-throughs of properties, where she could point out her favorite features of a home. She also said she feels the culture of TikTok is more witty than other platforms and seems to offer “endless potential” of who she can reach with her posts, so she enjoys being there more.
Her followers include people already living in New Hampshire but also people who are interested in moving here. One TikTok of her describing New Hampshire has more than 800,000 views.
Last year, Reyes said she closed on six homes thanks to leads she got through TikTok, something that hasn’t happened with other platforms. The ban, for her, would mean the loss of an environment that made it easier to find people and explore lots of different topics. On her own personal feed, she says she’s getting updates about real estate, but also learning about buffalos in Montana and the latest updates on the California wildfires.
Reyes said she is looking at other apps, including Xiaohongshu or RedNote, but she noted that RedNote has also drawn concerns from the U.S. government because it’s owned by a Chinese company — a prime concern underlying the potential TikTok ban.
“If TikTok does get banned and goes away, we have to go somewhere, right?” Reyes said. “I think we’ve shown from the growth of TikTok over the last few years and from the amount of hours that people spend on it that people want this type of outlet, where you feel like you can learn things that are maybe censored out on other platforms and you can just get a lot more raw, unadulterated content that’s not ‘made perfect’ as it would be on another app.”
