Local influencers share concerns over potential U.S. TikTok ban – 25 News Now
PEORIA (25News Now) – Two Peoria TikTok influencers say they’re worried a ban on the app could limit people’s free speech, hurt small businesses, and limit community engagement.
The House passed the bill to ban TikTok on Wednesday in a bipartisan vote of 352-65. The legislation now moves to the Senate.
President Biden said he would sign the bill if it passed in the Senate, giving TikTok’s parent company ByteDance 90 days to sell the China Communist Party’s 25% share of the app.
Peoria influencer Angie Ostaszewski promotes the city with her videos, and has convinced over 600 people to move to Peoria. She said if the app is banned, she is concerned there won’t be a platform for communities and organizations to easily engage with like-minded people.
“It could also set a precedent for the monitoring and policing of online content, when we’ve already had unrest for years looking at suppressed content on Instagram and Meta and X, and users feeling like their voices are already filtered,” Ostaszewski said.
She believes the House vote was based on fear.
“When there are already so many things that we know, tangibly, that are going on in the world right now, just saying free speech can be sacrificed due to a potential national security threat, I don’t know that we want to compromise our basic rights,” Ostaszewski said.
Peoria food influencer Seth Boyer said he is more worried about the effect the ban could have on marketing. He said his videos have helped several small businesses take off.
“I’m not really too concerned about myself because I can hopefully bring a lot of those followers to another app, which I’ve already been doing,” Boyer said. “It’s definitely the local businesses that have made a start off of TikTok that I’m mostly concerned about.”
He said he also makes money off of the app with advertisements, and if the app were to be banned, it would take money out of his pocket every month.
“I kind of like to kind of dip my paws in many different avenues just in case something like this happens,” Boyer said. “I’m a little prepared for it, but it would definitely hurt.”
Ostaszewski thinks banning the app could lead to censorship issues across other social media apps.
“If we ban one app because of a potential threat, what else can be banned,” Ostaszewski said. “How do we retain the ability to access the internet and retain online anonymity if we allow the slippery slope to progress?”
There are more than 170 million TikTok users in the U.S.
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