Content creators’ income through the TikTok Creator Fund may be in jeopardy if and when the United States government decides to ban the social media platform.
As previously reported, the overall reason why government officials are calling for a ban on TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese company Byte Dance, is because they fear that social media users’ sensitive data could be shared with the Chinese government. In recent news, CNN reports that government officials are requesting TikTok’s owners sell their “stake” or face the repercussions of getting banned in the United States.
Since the launch of TikTok in 2016, the social media platform has generated over one billion active users. In addition to the massive following, it is alleged that 150 million social media users are from the United States.
What is the TikTok Creator Fund, and how will content creators be affected if the ban passes?
Before the controversy surrounding TikTok, content creators gained notoriety and some fortune for their videos — which consisted of various topics, including viral challenges — that appealed to the masses. As TikTok gained popularity in recent years, the social media platform established the Creator Fund to help those individuals make income from their content.
According to its website, those accepted to participate in the Creator Fund after filling out an application would obtain their revenue from the amount of authentic views and “the level of engagement” they would get on each post. Although additional information has yet to be released to the general public about what will happen to TikTok content creators and the Creator Fund, many can assume that the ban could negatively impact social media users’ finances unless they pivot to other platforms such as Instagram and YouTube.
Vox reports that even though social media users could be affected by the TikTok ban if those individuals, who have a considerable following, choose to move their content over to Instagram, mainly on the app’s reels section, they could earn a lot more money through Instagram’s creator fund than they made in the past. The only downfall to this switch is that it is more challenging to go viral on Instagram than on TikTok.
