President Biden signed a bipartisan law last April stating that TikTok must either divest from its Chinese-owned parent company, ByteDance, by January 19 of this year or face a ban in the US. TikTok has since put significant time and resources into appealing this law, leading us to today’s Supreme Court hearing.

Earlier today, in a last-ditch effort, ByteDance presented arguments to the Supreme Court, asking it to block the ban or, at the very least, delay it until there’s time for further consideration. ByteDance argues that the law is unconstitutional and violates first amendment rights to free speech.

On the contrary, US lawmakers argue that TikTok poses a national security threat for two main reasons. The Chinese government could:

  1. Gain access to American app user data.
  2. Use TikTok’s algorithms to manipulate Americans with content.

The keyword here is “could,” as there’s no public evidence that this is happening.

So … What’s Next?

During today’s hearing, the justices seemed to be leaning toward upholding the law to require TikTok’s divestiture or face a ban on January 19. It’s unlikely that TikTok’s arguments over free speech will ease national security concerns, but that doesn’t mean that we’re at the end of the road. Once in office, President Trump could “trump” all of that by directing the Department of Justice not to enforce the law. In that case, users, creators, and advertisers go back to “business as usual,” at least for the foreseeable future.

A Ban Bodes Well For Meta And Google, Not For Creators

If the ban goes into effect (and it is enforced), Meta and Google have a lot to gain. We surveyed US TikTok users last April on this topic, and 56% indicated that they would use Reels more if TikTok gets banned, and 51% indicated that they’d turn to YouTube Shorts. Advertisers will follow suit. CMOs who we’ve spoken with confirmed that they will divert their media dollars to Meta and Google if they can no longer advertise on TikTok. This is the same behavior we saw in India when they banned TikTok in 2020.

An enforced ban would be incredibly disruptive to the creator and influencer community. TikTok is the place where culture happens, where trends are made, where songs take off, where books go viral, and where people shop. There’s a community for anything you can imagine, and it’s where over a million creators have invested in making content and amassing a following that many creators have monetized. If access to TikTok simply disappears in a couple of weeks for these creators, they will have to pivot and rebuild their followings, equity, and content on other platforms — likely Instagram and YouTube. This is a lesson in channel diversification that many creators are learning the hard way.

Forrester clients: Schedule a Forrester guidance session to talk about your TikTok and creator contingency plans.