Tik, Tok, Boom!

TikTok is finally getting the ban that it deserves - is your business ready?

The notorious Chinese spyware app TikTok is finally about to get its long-overdue ban from the US market in order to protect both consumers and businesses from its data collection and social manipulation threats. Effective January 19, 2024, the TikTok app will be banned from the app stores of Google and Apple unless a last-minute buyer of TikTok appears or it is appealed to and paused by the Supreme Court. Neither option would appear likely at the moment.

Why Again?

As I have written about for years (Is TikTok's Time Up?, The Rising Threat from China, Social Spyware), China is the main global adversary of the US and is very actively engaged in espionage against US companies. In spite of the constant litany of documented attacks against the US, US companies continue to leverage Chinese manufacturing to lower their costs, proving once again Lenin’s quote, “The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.”

The drumbeat to do something about this has finally reached the stage where the Congress was willing to act, as usual after several other countries had already implemented their own bans for the same reasons.

What Does The Mean?

Should the ban go into effect, Google and Apple will have to remove the app from their app stores or face significant fines. At this point, there is no indication that already installed apps will be disabled, though this is a possibility. Also, as far as is currently known, this ban will not impact access to TikTok from a web browser, so once again, we are getting another half-assed government solution to a problem. At least I can hope that the attention caused by the ban will raise the awareness of the threat to consumers and businesses who are using it for marketing purposes so that they take action on their own.

What Should You Do?

Delete it! Stop using it! Need I say more? For consumers, the challenge will be overcoming the psychological addiction that the app is known to promote. I wish you luck in overcoming this - my best advice if you are hooked on the dopamine drip is to switch to another app such as X.

For businesses, if you are actively using it for marketing purposes, I suggest you get a plan in place immediately to move to another platform. Not only do you face the risk of a disruption in your marketing plans, you will also be raising questions in your customers’ minds as to why you would be using a platform such as TikTok with such well-documented threats. I expect the noise about this to rise significantly the closer we get to the ban date.

If you are exposed, the time to act is now. Don’t wait for the inevitable, or you could be the one left holding the bomb!