What a TikTok ban could mean for creators

Here's what's at stake for the millions of creators who depend on TikTok for their income.

Transcript

00:00Tell me, what would a TikTok ban mean for influencers and small businesses that depend

00:05on the app? And why can't they just do what they do somewhere else?

00:08One challenge is that many influencers and many creators on TikTok haven't necessarily been using

00:15other apps. They haven't been building an audience or building an email list, a customer list,

00:20anything like that. Their presence has been very much built on TikTok. Their connections are on

00:26TikTok. And so that sort of lack of portability of that audience is going to cause many of them

00:31to take a hit. TikTok also has a really unique algorithm. It's an algorithm that's not necessarily

00:36built on a social graph, the way that Facebook and Instagram and other platforms are. With those

00:41other platforms, what you are shown is often really connected to the accounts that you already follow,

00:47your friends, your family. And TikTok's algorithm is not necessarily built that way. It's built

00:52to be much more of a behavioral algorithm. What you are looking at and what you are watching

00:56right now is going to very much dictate what you get served next. It's very sensitive. It's why

01:01people like it. It's why TikTok has been so popular. It has all of these other social media platforms

01:07back on their heels, quickly moving into vertical video, quickly moving into adjustments to their

01:12algorithm. And so ultimately, for many creators who have taken the time to develop vertical video,

01:20specifically short form vertical video, and move things in that direction, they may not be able to

01:26attract that same audience as easily when they move over to those other algorithms, to those

01:30other platforms. Just the way that they get eyeballs on what they're doing is ultimately

01:34going to fundamentally change.