16 million Californians use TikTok. Soon, it could go away. What would that mean?
Now that President Joe Biden has signed the bipartisan TikTok ban bill into law, the Chinese-owned social media app’s days might be numbered. And that means millions of Californians who rely on the video-sharing app may have to find their videos elsewhere.
Last month, TikTok collaborated with the firm Oxford Economics to produce a report looking at the impact the social media app has on various states, including California.
That report found that 16 million Californians use TikTok, and 890,000 businesses also do so. More than two-thirds (70%) of California users say that TikTok helps them stay in touch with friends and family.
Of the small-to-medium businesses that use TikTok, 40% reported that it is critical to their business.
Businesses’ use of the app for advertisements and marketing contributed $3.4 billion to California’s Gross Domestic Product, according to the study, as well as 28,000 jobs. It also generated more than $820 million in federal, state and local tax revenue.
The report found that TikTok was incredibly valuable for product promotion — 97% of small-to-medium businesses said sales increased due to product and service promotion on the app, and 96% said they actually sold out due to product promotion on TikTok.
Two-thirds of those businesses surveyed said that TikTok gave them the ability to connect with people who otherwise would be unreachable.
Dan Salinger, a retired Sacramento attorney with 2 million TikTok followers, told The Bee in an interview Tuesday, the day before Biden signed the ban into law, that he uses the app to “chronicle my life taking care of my dad, who has dementia.”
He said that he has spent thousands of hours building up his follower count.
“This app is so important to so many Americans for so many different reasons,” he said.
TikTok has vowed to fight the ban in court.
“We believe the facts and the law are clearly on our side, and we will ultimately prevail. The fact is, we have invested billions of dollars to keep U.S. data safe and our platform free from outside influence and manipulation,” the company said in a statement to The Bee.
“This ban would devastate 7 million businesses and silence 170 million Americans. As we continue to challenge this unconstitutional ban, we will continue investing and innovating to ensure TikTok remains a space where Americans of all walks of life can safely come to share their experiences, find joy, and be inspired.”
