TikTok has turned from a novelty into a necessity for many small businesses in the United States. A possible ban on TikTok would hit businesses that are just starting out particularly hard, AFP writes, reports UNN.
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A new U.S. law has put TikTok's parent, Chinese tech giant ByteDance, on a nine-month deadline to get rid of or ban the popular video platform in the United States.
U.S. lawmakers argued that TikTok could be used by the Chinese government for espionage and propaganda as long as it is owned by ByteDance.
However, according to an Oxford Economics study supported by the platform,
TikTok has gone from a novelty to a necessity for many small businesses in the United States.
The study says TikTok drives growth for more than seven million businesses in the U.S., helps generate billions of dollars, and supports more than 224,000 jobs.
According to eMarketer analyst Jasmine Enberg, the TikTok ban will hit businesses that are just starting out especially hard.
"Social media has democratized the commercial landscape and TikTok has really contributed to that," Enberg told AFP news agency.
It has become a crucial platform for many small businesses, especially those in niche industries or selling quirky products.
According to Enberg, one of the factors that sets TikTok apart from competing platforms is the ability to quickly distribute videos to a highly engaged audience.
"The potential to be discovered on TikTok is really unprecedented, and that's largely due to the algorithm as well as the entertaining content that's posted there," she said.
According to Damian Rollison, director of market analysis at SOCi, the younger generation is using TikTok as a kind of search engine, making Google-like queries and seeing what the algorithm comes up with.
"It feels like it was created by your peers, and they're telling you the truth about any topic," Rollison says of the trend.