LOS ANGELES, March 24 (Reuters) – When Cassidy Jacobson was 13 years outdated, she posted a video of herself dancing on the favored app TikTok.
Little did she know then that six years later her Casssidy_J account would have 1.5 million followers on the short-form video platform with followers drawn to her love of dance and hair care.
Jacobson desires of utilizing her success on TikTok – an app utilized by 150 million Individuals – to begin her personal curly hair care line and encourage others to like their pure curls.
That dream and people of different TikTok creators could also be dashed as many lawmakers strain the Biden administration to ban the favored Chinese language-owned social media app in america, alleging the app may very well be used for knowledge assortment, content material censorship and hurt to youngsters’s psychological well being.
Final week, TikTok stated the Biden administration demanded its Chinese language homeowners divest their stakes or face a possible ban.
Jacobson is making ready for the chance that she could need to take her content material elsewhere if the Chinese language firm ByteDance, which owns TikTok, is now not allowed to offer the app in america.
“TikTok is sort of rocky proper now and the objective of a content material creator is to develop your self throughout platforms to have a stable neighborhood, you don’t simply need to deal with one app,” Jacobson instructed Reuters.
Whether or not it’s creating all new content material for YouTube reels or taking her TikTok content material and transferring it over to Instagram, the influencer is ensuring to diversify her content material.
At a tense congressional listening to on Thursday, TikTok chief government Shou Zi Chew confronted robust questions from lawmakers.
“We don’t promote or take away content material on the request of the Chinese language authorities,” Chew instructed the listening to, including the app was “free from any manipulation.”
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There are much less extreme choices than banning the app outright, stated Freedom Home Analysis Director for Know-how and Democracy Allie Funk.
“Congress might cross a sturdy privateness legislation and bolster necessities for corporations to be extra clear about their operations and practices,” she instructed Reuters.
She suggests a complete privateness legislation to restrict knowledge assortment from TikTok together with common audits to make sure transparency.
Whereas it’s nonetheless not clear if the invoice launched by senators to grant the Commerce Division energy to ban overseas know-how will cross, many TikTok influencers are advocating for preservation with out prohibition.
“There must be safety for customers on apps, I feel the one manner is for the federal government holding ginormous corporations accountable, whether or not they’re U.S.-based or they’re based mostly in China,” Jacobson stated.
Whatever the nation, she believes that privateness violations from anybody harms everybody.
That could be a sentiment echoed by some Democratic lawmakers, a few of whom fear in regards to the political fallout for President Joe Biden of banning one thing so beloved by many younger voters.
Trans Chicana TikTok inventive NaomiHearts, recognized for her self-love content material, believes a ban would dampen her religion in Biden, for whom she voted in 2020.
“We put our belief in somebody, in my thoughts there’s no good politician,” stated Naomi, who declined to offer her full identify. “However I put him in workplace as a result of I believed in what he stood for and as time goes by, I feel that is going to have an effect on lots of people’s opinions.”
Naomi stated she is a bit reluctant to modify over to different platforms, as TikTok has given her alternatives that she hasn’t discovered elsewhere.
Past recognition and followers, TikTok backers imagine it supplies livelihoods, paths to social change and a way of neighborhood.
“As a trans particular person on this world, they (society) don’t actually care about us, so to have the ability to make six figures a 12 months due to TikTok, and types reaching out to me due to that app, it’s wild,” she stated.
Reporting by Danielle Broadway and Rollo Ross; further reporting by Sheila Dang and David Shepardson;
Enhancing by Mary Milliken and Aurora Ellis
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