After months of legal tussles, the US Supreme Court on Friday upheld a law that would ban the video-sharing platform -- used by 170 million Americans -- in the name of national security, unless its Chinese owners reach an 11th-hour deal to sell it to American buyers.
"I'm more sad than shocked," the 24-year-old Chaudhary told AFP. "But still, it's sad and disappointing that the US government has come together to ban an app instead of banding together to adopt a law that matters about health or education."
It remains uncertain whether TikTok will turn out the lights Sunday -- for a single day or forever. Potential buyers exist, though TikTok's owner, Chinese tech company ByteDance, has systematically refused to part with its crown jewel.
President-elect Donald Trump, just days from his second inauguration, said Friday that he "must have time" to decide whether to enforce the high court's ruling. He promised a decision "in the not too distant future."
Until then, Ayman and countless other content creators have been left gloomily contemplating a future without TikTok.
- Mandarin 'out of spite'? -
"I started five years ago in 2020 during (the Covid-19) quarantine, and I've been employed, like, through TikTok, and now it just feels like suddenly I'm unemployed," said Ayman, an avid reader who offers book recommendations on the platform, earning enough from ads and sponsors to pay her bills.
Like thousands of other worried TikTok users, she has protectively created a profile on Xiaohongshu ("Little Red Book"), a Chinese social media network similar to Instagram.
Nicknamed "Red Note" by its American users, it was the most-downloaded app on the American Apple Store this week.
People are turning to Red Note, Ayman said, as "kind of a protest, because it is a Chinese-owned app, and TikTok is being banned because it's, like, Chinese-owned."
The language-teaching app Duolingo made a clear pitch to people looking for life after TikTok.
"Learning Mandarin out of spite? You're not alone," Duolingo posted on X. "We've seen a 216% growth in new Chinese (Mandarin) learners in the US compared to this time last year."
On TikTok, many American creators have published videos combining their favorite moments on the app with farewell messages urging fans to follow them to other platforms, including Xiaohongshu -- while openly mocking the concerns of American lawmakers.
- 'Micro-influencers' -
"Most students don't buy the narrative that there's Chinese spies that are controlling the algorithm" on TikTok, said Chris Dier, a history teacher who shares educational videos on TikTok and uses them as well in his classes.
He said students "think that the United States government is not a fan of TikTok because... the government can't easily control it."
Xiaohongshu, which is entirely in Mandarin, would not appear to provide a realistic long-term alternative for frustrated American users.
Popular even before the pandemic, TikTok exploded among young people living in quarantine, and became a must-have resource for many small companies and start-ups.
"It's a scary time for a lot of smaller creators, because I think TikTok is one of the very few platforms on the internet where micro-influencers can really thrive," said Nathan Espinoza, who has more than 550,000 subscribers on the app.
Indeed, the social network has built its success not so much via personal recommendations as through its ultra-powerful algorithm, which lets it rapidly identify users' interests and funnel content of particular interest to them.
"I'm a more YouTube-centric creator now," Espinoza said.
"But I wouldn't be where I am today without TikTok, because that first viral video showed me that it's possible, and there's an audience for the type of videos that I make."
TikTok's journey from fun app to US security concern
San Francisco (AFP) Jan 18, 2025 -
As a law that could get TikTok banned in the United States is poised to go into effect, here is a look at the rise of the video-sharing social media platform.
- Genesis -
In 2016, Beijing-based ByteDance launched Douyin, an app for sharing short videos, in the Chinese market.
ByteDance released TikTok for the international market the following year, shortly before buying "lip-synching" app Musical.ly and merging it into TikTok.
The social network became a hit, with its algorithm serving up endless collections of short, looping and typically playful videos posted by users.
- Pandemic boom -
TikTok's popularity soared during the Covid-19 pandemic declared in 2020, as people enduring lockdowns relied on the internet for diversion and entertainment.
As a result, authorities worldwide began eyeing TikTok's influence and addictive appeal.
TikTok became one of the most downloaded apps in the world, as officials grew increasingly wary of the potential for the Chinese government to influence ByteDance or access user data.
India banned TikTok in July 2020 due to tensions with China.
- Targeted by Trump -
While Donald Trump was US president in 2020, he signed executive orders to ban TikTok in the United States.
Trump accused TikTok, without proof, of siphoning off US users' data to benefit Beijing and of censoring posts at the direction of Chinese officials.
Trump's decision was made as his government clashed with Beijing on an array of issues.
During a failed bid for reelection in 2020, the Republican continued to campaign on an anti-China message.
Between legal challenges and Trump's loss to Joe Biden in that year's presidential election, the executive orders did not take effect.
- Billion mark -
In September 2021, TikTok announced it had one billion monthly users worldwide.
But concerns grew about TikTok users facing risks of addiction, propaganda and spying.
In 2022, BuzzFeed reported that ByteDance employees based in China had accessed TikTok users' non-public information.
ByteDance tried to cool privacy concerns by hosting user data on servers managed in the United States by Oracle.
The move did not ease concerns, however, with TikTok banned from devices used by the US military.
An array of other government agencies and academic institutes followed suit, forbidding members from using TikTok.
TikTok's Singaporean chief executive Shou Chew was grilled by members of the US Congress during a six-hour hearing in March 2023.
- Sell or go -
TikTok was back in the hot seat in the United States in 2024 when President Joe Biden authorized a law requiring TikTok to be banned if ByteDance does not sell the app to a company not associated with a national security adversary.
Washington's stated aim was to cut the risk of Beijing spying on or manipulating TikTok users, particularly the 170 million US users of the app.
TikTok remains adamant that it has never shared user data with the Chinese government or done its bidding at the social network.
ByteDance sued the US government, arguing the law violates free speech rights.
A final decision in that case was made Friday by the US Supreme Court, which upheld a law going into effect on January 19.
In a major defeat for TikTok, the court ruled that the law does not violate free speech rights and that the US government had demonstrated legitimate national security concerns about a Chinese company owning the app.
President-elect Trump, who returns to office on Monday, has signaled he might intervene on TikTok's behalf.
The company, however, has said that unless the outgoing Biden administration makes "definitive" assurances that the law will not be implemented, it would be forced to "go dark."
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