Panicked US TikTok Creators Ask Users to Follow Them on Other Apps

American TikTokers are asking users to follow them on other social media apps — as TikTok’s threatened U.S. ban next month seems even more likely after a federal appeals court’s ruling last week upheld the law.

In April, President Biden signed a law that gave TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance 90 days to sell the video app or face a total ban in the U.S.

The law means that TikTok, which is used by 170 million Americans, could be banned across the U.S. as soon as January 19 — unless the video app divests from its Beijing-based parent company.

And last week, a U.S. federal appeals court upheld the law — meaning that TikTok’s ban is set to go into effect next month/in six weeks unless it finds a new owner.

Now American content creators on TikTok have started asking followers to subscribe to their channels on rival platforms like Instagram and YouTube, according to a report by Reuters.

With the prospect of a ban in just six weeks, some TikTokers have also begun asking followers which social media apps they would like to follow them on instead.

On the app, both viewers and content creators expressed fear and confusion, with many doubting TikTok’s survival in the U.S. and bracing themselves for the worst. Many TikTokers voiced concerns about their future livelihoods if the ban goes into effect.

“I don’t think there’s longevity on this app in the United States,” Chris Burkett, a TikTok content creator with 1.3 million followers says in a recent video post in which he asks his fans to follow him on Instagram, YouTube, Threads, and X instead.

“For the first time I’m realizing that a lot of what I worked for could disappear,” Chris Mowrey, an influencer with 470,000 TikTok followers, tells Reuters. “I don’t think it’s been talked about enough how damaging it will be from an economic standpoint for small businesses and creators.”

On Monday, TikTok asked a court for an emergency injunction to prevent it becoming unavailable in the U.S. in the new year.

TikTok warned that U.S. small businesses and social media creators would lose $1.3 billion in revenue and earnings in just one month if the popular app is effectively shut down in the United States on January 19.

“Almost two million creators in the United States would suffer almost $300 million in lost earnings, and TikTok itself would lose 29% of our targeted global advertising revenue for 2025,” Blake Chandlee, president of global business solutions for TikTok, writes in a court filing.

However, the Department of Justice (DOJ) called for the request to be dismissed, saying its underlying arguments have already been “definitively rejected.”

 
Image credits: Header photo via (left to right) TikTok/@mel_schmidtt; TikTok/@jbril.elsayed; TikTok/@ratedlaur.