With the U.S. rumored to be banning TikTok, many Americans are wondering what life will be like without the popular content-creating app.
One country, India, has already banned TikTok, so Americans may have to look to them to see what their lives might be like in a TikTok-less world.
What Is the TikTok Ban?
In March 2024, the U.S. Senate voted in favor of a bill that would ban TikTok across the U.S., according to CNN Politics.
The ban is said to be due to a potential security threat that the Chinese-owned app reportedly poses to the US.
India Banned TikTok in 2020
The Indian government already banned TikTok in their country, with the ban taking place in June 2020.
The country banned TikTok and other Chinese-owned apps seemingly overnight after escalating tensions between the two countries came to a head and resulted in the deaths of 20 Indian soldiers, according to CNN Business.
TikTok Was Misusing Data
It wasn’t just the escalating tensions between India and China that led to this ban, with a news release from the Indian Ministry of Information Technology stating they felt that TikTok was misusing users’ information.
The release also said that TikTok was “transmitting users’ data in an unauthorized manner” and that the use of this data posed a risk to India’s national security.
Indians Were Calling for a TikTok Ban
With the threat to their national security, many Indians were calling for TikTok to be banned before the ban was put in place.
As they were worried about how their privacy could be affected, this seemed like the only logical option for the 120 million TikTok users who were worried about how their data had been used.
TikTok Had Been Briefly Banned in India Before
Before the official ban in June 2020, the Indian government had already temporarily banned TikTok due to concerns outside of national security.
CNN Business reported in 2019 that there was concern that TikTok was exposing children to inappropriate content. However, after this decision was appealed, the ban was lifted.
TikTok Has Been Banned in Other Countries
India wasn’t the first country to ban TikTok, as Indonesia has also previously banned the content-creating app, albeit briefly.
In 2018, Reuters reported that Indonesia had banned TikTok due to its inappropriate content. However, the ban was lifted after TikTok agreed to remove “all negative content” from the platform.
The American Government Praised the TikTok Ban in India
Although it is still unclear whether TikTok will be banned in the U.S., the American government has shown its support for the Indian TikTok ban.
CNN Business reported that former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the U.S. was among the first to praise India for its decision, which could be a sign of what’s to come.
A Market Emerged for a TikTok Alternative
With millions of Indians now without TikTok, a new market emerged to offer TikTok’s users an alternative platform.
Locobuzz shared a list of good TikTok alternatives for Indians to use, including Bolo Indiya, Moj, and Mitron.
Popular Tech Giants Also Offered TikTok Alternatives
Aside from Indian companies making TikTok alternatives, other companies started offering TikTok alternatives, including Meta.
Meta, who owns Facebook and Instagram, launched Instagram Reels in 2020, not that long after TikTok was banned in India, to offer TikTok users an alternative, according to CNN Business.
TikTok Creators Moved Content to Instagram
As Instagram launched its reels feature in India, this led many TikTok content creators to move any content they had planned for TikTok over to Instagram.
This enabled them to still keep up their online presence, despite TikTok now being banned. However, many TikTok creators either didn’t move their content across or struggled to gain the same large following they had on TikTok
What a Potential TikTok Ban Could Mean for Americans
Having seen what has happened in India since the TikTok ban, this provides insight into what a TikTok ban in the U.S. could mean for Americans.
According to Sky News, unless ByteDance, who owns TikTok, sells the app, the ban may still go ahead and would remain in place unless the app is sold.
