TikTok is to be banned in the US after both major political parties called for ByteDance to sell the app to a non-Chinese company. The legislation has already been signed into law by President Joe Biden.
The legislation and potential ban is not something that’s affecting the UK directly. Yet. But it may require the toy business to be ready to pivot, something it’s had to do several times already – because kids’ desire to find out about cool stuff and share it will remain a constant.
TikTok has become a major communication platform for toy companies and, like YouTube, has taken a bite out of television advertising. ByteDance, however, says it has no intention of selling the business.
“ByteDance doesn’t have any plans to sell TikTok,” the company posted on its official account on Toutiao, a social media platform it owns.
“Foreign media reports of ByteDance selling TikTok are not true,” the company said in the post, which included a screen shot of the article with the Chinese characters meaning “false rumour” stamped on it.
What social media has done is make it faster and, in some cases, less expensive to promote products. If TikTok goes away, all of that will simply move to another platform. What TikTok has effectively done is to establish the short-form, personal video as an effective media strategy.
This is a key developing and evolving story. And TnP will be following it all the way.
