Congress could ban TikTok in America. Concerned Georgia creators weigh in on the proposal

Georgia content creators and business owners gathered in Atlanta for a TikTok community event to talk about safety efforts and the future of the app.  TikTok Parent company ByteDance will have 165 days to sell the app if Congress moves forward with a bipartisan bill to ban it.

The U.S House of Representatives approved the bill Saturday and now it heads to the Senate for a vote as soon as Tuesday. The ban comes after national security concerns from the Federal Bureau of Investigation about the relationship between ByteDance and the Chinese Government.

TikTok held a community event at Sugar Baby Creamery in Atlanta. Head of Trust and Safety Suzy Loftus discussed updates to the app’s controls and conditions to address children’s safety concerns.  She said there are restrictions on the app for people under 18.

“The daily screen time is set to 60 minutes by default,” Loftus said. “There's no virtual gifts, no going live. And no notifications at night. So I think, again, I think some of these, aspects are what we call safety by design.”

TikTok has become a major source of income for influencers and small business across Georgia.

Paul Tran co-owns Love and Pebble skincare with his wife, Lynda Truong. They both spoke on the TikTok panel. He said the app has completely changed the way they reach customers.

“In 2023, we started on TikTok shop; it literally obliterated our sales,” Tran said. “ We just sold so much in 2023. To this day, 90% of our sales are on TikTok shop.”

Love and Pebble’s popularity on TikTok has allowed them to reach customers outside of Georgia and be invited onto business shows like Shark Tank.

Real estate agent Glennda Baker is another local creator who spoke on the panel. She said small businesses won’t be able to duplicate the success they found on TikTok on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.

“Other platforms typically are saturated by big budget creators, not organic business,” Baker said. “And if you don’t have a ton of money to spend on your marketing, you don’t have a zillion dollars, you can’t make an impact on the other big three.”

Data from TikTok shows over 300,000 businesses and 5.4 millions people in Georgia actively use the app.