San Antonio TikTok creators brace for possible ban of app

TikTok, the popular social media platform known for short videos, is set to go offline for 170 million American users this Sunday. This includes influencers and content creators in San Antonio who depend on the app for income and community.

Mercedes “Sadie” Silva, who has built an online brand on TikTok as an active stay-at-home mom, hopes the ban won't happen. Using the username “mercedesxms,” she has gained over 82,000 followers since she began posting videos in 2020 during the pandemic. “It’s disheartening to think about the opportunities I could lose because of it,” Silva told the San Antonio Report on Thursday. “I don’t want to believe it—I want to hold on to the hope that it doesn’t happen.” Under a new federal law signed last year by President Joe Biden, TikTok will be banned in the United States starting Sunday, Jan. 19, unless its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, sells the app to a U.S.-based company.

The new law addresses concerns from some government officials who see the platform as a national security risk, fearing that Beijing-based ByteDance might share U.S. user data with the Chinese government. Recently, both Biden and President-elect Donald Trump have said they are looking into other ways to prevent the platform from being banned.

Last week, the Supreme Court heard arguments from TikTok, which claimed that the new law violates Americans' First Amendment rights. The company asked the court to block the ban, even though it had already lost a previous legal challenge in December when a three-judge panel unanimously dismissed its case.

On Friday, the Supreme Court decided to uphold the law and reject the company's free speech challenge. In its decision, the court emphasized that national security concerns were a key factor in its analysis of the First Amendment issue, with the justices particularly focusing on data collection practices.

Content creators based in San Antonio, like Silva, who have built strong followings on the app, are waiting to see what happens this weekend.