There’s a long way to go before it becomes law, but if the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, passed in March by the House, gets approved in the Senate and signed by The White House, TikTok could get banned in U.S. app stores.
Even still, the bill only asks ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese-based parent company, to divest itself in 180 days or have the plug pulled in America, so there’s no clear outcome yet. U.S. lawmakers are concerned about the popular social media platform because the Chinese Communist Party has a stake in ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, and therefore, the CCP could access a whole trove of domestic data and have undue influence on U.S. public opinion.
Clearly, there’s no reason to delete TikTok from your device. It raises the question, though — where would TikTok’s 170 million users go if the app does become unavailable in the U.S.? And are there any U.S. alternatives to TikTok in development?
Is there an American alternative to TikTok?
It’s hard to say what plans may be hatching in Silicon Valley or the boardrooms of tech companies to seize the opportunity that TikTok might go away. But other social media apps on the market already offer a TikTok-like experience, including Triller, Zynn, Dubsmash, and Byte. Whether any of those apps have the same algorithmic “we give you what you want before you want it” feel that made TikTok so widely used remains to be seen.
Meanwhile, apps like Instagram have offered features like reels for some time, trying to replicate the TikTok experience. Furthermore, TikTok’s popularity plateaued even before Washington got involved. So, all combined, there may be an opportunity for an established tech giant or a plucky developer in their garage with the next great idea to take the reigning social media heavyweight down, regardless of how politics play out.