A TikTok Ban Is Imminent: What Are the Financial Stakes?

By Free Republic | Created at 2025-01-18 20:26:02 | Updated at 2025-01-19 00:32:23 4 hours ago

A TikTok Ban Is Imminent: What Are the Financial Stakes?
The Wall Street Journal ^ | January 18, 2025 | Sarah E. Needleman and Georgia Wells

Posted on 01/18/2025 12:25:05 PM PST by lasereye

The disappearance of TikTok threatens to erase billions of dollars from the U.S. economy and remove an important platform used by millions of American businesses and social-media entrepreneurs to connect with customers.

TikTok’s demise won’t dent the U.S. economy overall, but it is poised to crimp a sizable sub-economy that has sprung up around the hugely popular app used by roughly 170 million Americans. Putting a precise figure on TikTok’s impact across the U.S. economy is difficult, though the company has touted a figure of more than $20 billion a year.

Ella Livingston has a pretty clear idea of how it will affect her. She says a ban will cut off about $25,000 in monthly sales for Cocoa Asante, the artisan chocolate company she owns in Chattanooga, Tenn. She is anticipating having to lay off four to five part-time workers.

“It would be very, very painful,” said Livingston, 31, a former high-school math teacher who credits TikTok for helping her startup rapidly grow in 2023 after an influencer posted a flattering review on the app about one of her company’s products, unprompted. “It went viral on a Friday night, and by Sunday I wrote my resignation letter.”

A ban is expected to start Sunday after the Supreme Court upheld a federal law Friday that requires TikTok to separate from parent company ByteDance or else be banned.

Proponents of a ban say any such impact is outweighed by the national security risks that the app could be used by China’s government to propagandize or spy on Americans—actions TikTok has said it wouldn’t allow.

The sale-or-ban bill passed with broad bipartisan support. President-elect Donald Trump has suggested he might try to save TikTok.

Biden administration officials have signaled they don’t intend to enforce the ban on his final day in office.

(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...

TOPICS: Business/Economy; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: ban; tiktok

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There are competing products out there like Reels. Seems like this shouldn't be a problem in the long run. Short term there would be disruptions.

TikTok and other Chinese apps are banned in India, because it allegedly has spyware. It's also banned on all Defense Dept. devices for the same reason.

1 posted on 01/18/2025 12:25:05 PM PST by lasereye

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