The Law of Unintended Consequences again applies as the US Government is preparing to ban TikTok for data privacy and security concerns. I expect the expectation was for all those TikTok folks to just bop over to Instagram, Facebook, Threads, or X, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. At least, it’s not as simple as that. It looks like many Tiktokers are migrating to “RedNote”, the Chinese answer to TikTok. So now we’re playing a game of whack-a-mole. Fun.
As wiser people than me have pointed out, a TikTok ban will not do much of anything in terms of security and data privacy (here’s a good piece on that). These sorts of things happen when legislation is crafted by people who don’t understand the technology they’re trying to regulate. Anyway, I understand there’s the possibility that the Supreme Court will weigh in on this, so I guess there is a slight possibility that this ban be halted, but I’m not holding my breath. So, it’ll be interesting to see how the policy implications shake out. I doubt anyone has a solid grasp on how this will ripple out.
With this, I know some folks whose businesses are highly dependent on TikTok who are scrambling to work their way through this. As I’ve written before, you should NOT set your business up highly dependent upon a single platform you can’t control, or have little to no influence with. I always recommend driving people to a website that you are in control of, and then having them sign up for a newsletter. Email lists are very portable, as are website signups. If you can email even 70% of your followers, something like a TikTok ban becomes less life-threatening to your business. Keeping the risks your business faces in mind is crucial for sustainability.
2025 is shaping up to be a very dynamic year for business in the digital realm.
