While TikTok followers in the United States are worried about losing access to the wildly popular social media app, there are lessons they can learn from a country on the other side of the world.
The US House of Representatives passed a bill on Wednesday that could lead to a ban on TikTok nationwide. Although the Chinese-owned app won’t be disappearing from Americans’ phones anytime soon, many of its 170 million users in the country are deeply shocked.
But here’s what they need to know: It’s possible to survive and thrive in a world without TikTok. And if not, ask the most populated nation on the planet.
In June 2020, following a violent clash on the India-China border that left at least 20 Indian soldiers dead, the New Delhi government suddenly banned TikTok and several other well-known Chinese apps.
“It is important to remember that when India banned TikTok and other Chinese apps, the United States was the first to praise the decision,” says Nikhil Pahwa, founder of Delhi-based technology website MediaNama. “He [ex] US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had welcomed the ban, stating that it will ‘boost India’s sovereignty.’”
Although India’s abrupt decision shocked the country’s 200 million TikTok users, in the four years since, many have found other suitable alternatives.
“The Tiktok ban led to the creation of a multi-billion dollar opportunity… A base of 200 million users needed a place to go,” Pahwa said, adding that it was ultimately US tech companies that seized the moment with their new offerings.
Life without TikTok
The ban was not without pain. Indian TikTok users had to deal with confusion and even distress in the days and months that followed.
In 2020, TikTok had become hugely popular among Indians seeking relief from the pressures of strict Covid-19-related lockdowns.
“Everyone in India wants to be a Bollywood star, and TikTok made that dream possible by turning people, including those in small towns, into stars overnight,” says Saptarshi Ray, head of product at Viralo. a Bengaluru-based influencer marketing platform.
But it didn’t take long for other avenues for his creativity and business initiatives to emerge.
A fierce fight ensued between American tech giants and domestic startups to fill that void. A week after the ban, Meta-owned Instagram cashed in by launching its TikTok copycat, Instagram Reels, in India. Google introduced its own short video offering, YouTube Shorts.
Local alternatives, such as MX Taka Tak and Moj, also began to gain popularity and funding.
However, these local companies soon faded away, unable to match the reach and financial power of the burgeoning American ones.
Citing independent data from consulting firm Oxford Economics, a Google spokesperson said that “the YouTube creative ecosystem” contributed about $2 billion to the Indian economy in 2022.
According to Ray, Indian content creators quickly moved all the old content they had recorded for TikTok to Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts. “Some influencers uploaded seven Reels a day and gained between four and five million subscribers a year,” he explains.
But not everyone was able to gain a significant number of followers on these platforms.
“Many users and creators fell into a deep, dark space after the ban, and some still haven’t come out of it,” explains Clyde Fernandes, executive director of artist management at Opraahfx, an influencer marketing and management company.
“The way one gained reach and followers on TikTok remains incomparable to any other platform,” he added.
And security?
U.S. officials and lawmakers have long expressed concern that the Chinese government could force ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, to hand over data collected from U.S. users.
Cybersecurity experts say the national security issues surrounding TikTok remain largely hypothetical. Indian experts, however, say their purge of national digital life has not resulted in a safer space.
«I’m not so sure that the removal of TikTok will make a dent in the cybersecurity threat landscape. Unless there is a radical change in users’ awareness of the software on their phones or what they download from the Internet, this is unlikely to change,” says Vivan Sharan, partner at technology policy consultancy Koan Advisory Group. , based in Delhi.
US lawmakers also fear that the app could be used by Beijing to spread propaganda, misinform or influence Americans. TikTok’s withdrawal has not insulated Indians from those threats.
“In terms of the content and misinformation environment, it is clear that we continue to have to deal with serious problems such as deepfakes, among others, with or without TikTok,” says Sharan. “So overall, it’s hard to see how much of the risk landscape changes significantly, assuming TikTok was certifiably problematic.”