TikTok underwent a temporary ban in January, sparking concerns among small-business owners who rely on the platform to grow their companies’ reach.
“TikTok has definitely given us a chance to reach a broader audience, especially those who aren’t already following us. It has a greater potential to go viral and to connect with a younger community than Instagram or Facebook,” said Angelina Bruno, the marketing coordinator at Poppy Handcrafted Popcorn, a local business in Asheville.
Bruno said Poppy’s most engaged platform by far is Instagram.
“This platform is really where the magic happens for us right now. The company is always looking for new ways to connect,” Bruno said.
The marketing coordinator said Poppy is confident that even if a permanent ban happens, the company will remain connected with its audiences on its active platforms.
Deena Burris, an associate professor of business at UNC Asheville, said smaller businesses tend to rely more on platforms like TikTok, while larger companies don’t depend on them as much.
As a result, Burris says a potential ban would be less likely to impact larger companies.
“The banning of TikTok may not be as damaging to small and local companies as one may think,” Burris said. “If small businesses rely on this social media app, they will need to explore other tools to expand their reach. These companies would have needed to adapt, even without the threat of TikTok’s ban.”
Ashe Cosette, a new media lecturer at UNC Asheville, said that as small businesses have had to adapt to government regulations on social media platforms, individuals raise important ethical questions about the limits placed on users’ freedoms.
“It is an ethical gray area for a government to ban any social media networks,” Cosette said. “Outright bans are difficult to police when you have a constitutional right to freedom of speech, such as in the U.S.”
According to the new media lecturer, banning content and banning the network are two distinct differences. She said that terminating a delivery service between libraries would be like burning specific copies of books within a single library.
“So in the case of someone creating content on a network such as TikTok, no freedoms have been infringed by its ban, so it technically isn’t unethical. It would be unethical to the content itself, but banning a network would require restrictions on flow of traffic which could become unethical,” Cosette said.
Clare Pierce, a sophomore college student and Durham resident, said that despite ethical concerns evident in the potential permanent banning, she sees the TikTok ban as a chance to improve users’ mental health.
“I have never had TikTok or spent time on it, so the ban does not personally affect me. I have never been a big fan of social media,” Pierce said. “I feel like a lot of my peers spend an excessive amount of time on social media platforms such as this. Apps and social media platforms can negatively impact users’ mental health, as I have seen firsthand.”
Cosette said the potential TikTok ban raises national security concerns, which are closely linked to the geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and China.
“The U.S. does not want foreign entities buying and selling its citizens personal information because it is a billion-dollar industry,” Cosette said.
She said the U.S. government sees TikTok as a national security concern because it is controlled and operated by a Chinese corporation.
“The irony, of course, is that the U.S. does not care if U.S.-based social media corporations are buying and selling its user’s personal data, which, by the way, includes around 4 billion users worldwide,” Cosette said. “The question is why aren’t Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. seen as security threats either.”
Cosette said if the U.S. were to expand its regulatory practices across all social media networks, the problem would be deciding which practices should be controlled. However, if the government regulated inherent biases in algorithmic suggestions, used bots to influence traffic flow, or addressed the practice of leveraging notifications like Vegas slot machines, the addictive effects could be reduced.
“Those are the kinds of practices that I personally believe are connected to a widespread mental health decline, but I have not performed or read enough studies to support my claim,” Cosette said.
