When President Donald Trump threatened to ban TikTok in August, Anna Fujii wondered whether the days of influencers dancing the “Renegade” were over.
While Fujii didn’t think the app would actually cease to exist, she worried about what the government’s decision could mean for influencers on campus. The proposed ban would allow users with existing accounts to continue post and engage, but would prohibit any new downloads or upgrades to the app.
She and other members of USC’s Reach, a club that supports students interested in careers in social media, even considered rebuilding their TikTok following on another app.
“I’m not even sure it was a fear,” Fujii said in an interview with Annenberg Media. “People (were) trying to self-promote, which I respect. A lot of people made videos saying, ‘hey, follow me on my Instagram, just in case TikTok goes down.’”
But last week, Fujii and other USC influencers were given some good news: a federal judge granted TikTok an injunction that blocked the app’s ban shortly before it was set to begin.
“I think for me, this time during COVID-19 is already uncertain so, with the added uncertainty and chaos that President Trump added with this on and off banning TikTok, I feel like it kind of took a toll on my mental health,” USC influencer Conrad Rocha, a junior majoring in Business and Cinematic Arts, said.
Besides the mental health impact of TikTok’s ban, it also affected influencers that use the app as a source of income. For some, prohibiting the social media outlet meant losing several jobs.
“A lot of influencers make their money, like their primary income from TikTok, and that’s how I make money,” Rocha said. “My income comes from the jobs that I get from TikTok and promoting certain brands or our music things. Him taking that away, causes the pressure of like, how am I gonna make the same kind of money without this platform that I have?”
Uncertainty around the future of TikTok, a Chinese-owned app, began over the summer as politicians' concerns over potential national security threats escalated. Then, on Aug. 6, President Donald Trump signed an executive order banning TikTok in 45 days unless the app was sold to “A very American company.”
After 45 days without a sale, the deadline was pushed back a week. TikTok then filed an injunction against the ban, hoping the U.S. government would consider a further delay.
On Sept. 19, US-based companies Oracle and Walmart released a tentative agreement to buy the app and form TikTok Global. But, disagreements over details and lack of governmental approval meant that the sale did not go through.
Just over a week later, the deadline was further pushed back after the judge’s injunction.
“I never really accepted that it was going to be banned,” Rocha said. “I think TikTok was doing a really good job at reassuring people that they weren’t going to be bullied by President Trump into being forced to take their business out of the US.”
While the immediate threat of the ban is gone, some tech experts say the uncertainty around its future remains.
Besides setting what NBC News Youth and Internet Culture Reporter Kalhan Rosenblatt called a potential “dangerous precedent,” banning Tik Tok could have cultural implications as well.
“I think the bottom line is, if Tik Tok were to successfully be banned, I think we’d feel a real hole in the internet,” she said in an interview with Annenberg Media. “And a real hole in the sort of community —especially during quarantine— that keeps us connected to one another when we are all so isolated right now.”