Online traders are warning a U.S. TikTok ban could have a “potentially devastating” impact on British businesses.
They criticized President Joe Bidenaftr he signed into law a bill that gives TikTok’s Chinese owner ByteDance nine months to sell its stake in the app or it will be blocked in America — a move TikTok says it will challenge in court.
Isobel Perl, founder of Perl Cosmetics in London, is among the army of web traders worried about the impact of a ban as a quarter of her sales now come from the U.S.
“[A U.S. ban] could be potentially devastating to businesses in the U.K. — TikTok is quite a unique way of reaching customers,” Perl said.
“I mostly use TikTok to drive sales to our website. Of all the social media apps it drives the most traffic,” she told the BBC.
Around 1.5 million U.K. businesses operate on TikTok.
Kyle Frank, founder of Franks Remedies, is another entrepreneur worried about the impact of a U.S. ban on the app. He sells huge amounts of his skin care products in the country through the app.
“Certain months 60 to 70 percent of our monthly sales have come from the U.S.,” he stated in his interview with the BBC.
America is now Perl’s second biggest market — and TikTok was vital in breaking it.
“We haven’t really had to spend any money on ads or marketing to get those customers and connect with them,” he said.
U.S. officials have raised alarm over TikTok’s popularity with young people, and Biden’s law has been introduced amid worries the company may share user data with the Chinese government — claims it has always denied.
TikTok has said it would challenge the “unconstitutional” move in court.
“The fact is, we have invested billions of dollars to keep U.S. data safe and our platform free from outside influence and manipulation,” the company said in a statement.
A spokesman for TikTok added the bill would “trample the free speech rights of 170 million Americans, devastate seven million businesses, and shutter a platform that contributes $24 billion to the U.S. economy annually.”
