Last Wednesday, the US House of Representatives passed a bill that could lead to the banning of social media platform TikTok in the US. At issue is the ownership of the app, which is currently held by Chinese company ByteDance. The bill demands that ByteDance sell its interest in TikTok to a company that “satisfies US government interests” or face a ban.
It’s ironic that given the Chinese government’s propensity for banning US-based social medial apps in its country, one that originates from there could now face the same fate in the US. Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Benin, decried the bill, without any hint of irony, as putting, “the US on the opposite side of the principle of fair competition and international economic and trade rules”.
But, while the Chinese may be shaking their fists in outrage at what may be the first step in a strategy to limit the reach and profitability of other Chinese made apps in America, it’s potentially good news in Hollywood, where many see the possible ban on TikTok as beneficial for US entertainment industry.
TikTok, which is estimated to have 170-million US subscribers, has, according to recent statistics, shown itself to be one of the most popular screen time grabbing platforms, with US mobile users spending an average of 97 minutes a day scrolling its content. That’s 97 minutes of screen time in an increasingly competitive market, that many in Hollywood would prefer to be used to view its streaming and film offerings. It’s a theory that’s somewhat borne out by an announcement by Netflix in October 2021 that during a global, six-hour outage of Meta’s Facebook and Instagram apps, the streaming service saw a 14.4% increase in usage of its platform.
The popularity of TikTok has also been impossible for Hollywood to ignore on a more visual level, with productions now making extensive reference to the medium as a means of demonstrating that the Dream Factory is hip to what’s going on with the kids. That role would fall to other apps if TikTok were to be forcefully removed from the US entertainment arena. What may happen is that the biggest beneficiaries of a ban would be Meta and other social media content app owners, who would see users increase their usage on their platforms as they seek a replacement for their previous TikTok fix.
There are, however, two sides to the TikTok-Hollywood coin and not everyone believes that a TikTok ban would automatically benefit US entertainment companies. Because of its popularity with young people, Hollywood has in recent years made extensive use of the app and its content creators as a means of promoting its content to the all-important youth demographic. If the app were to be banned, then Hollywood would obviously lose an increasingly powerful tool in its publicity and promotion arsenal.
Hollywood executives have credited TikTok with helping to drive the success of films like 2023’s biggest grossing film, Barbie, and the Tim Burton Netflix series Wednesday. Though studios now invest plenty of money and hours into pushing their product on TikTok, they are also reliant on the knock-on effect of these campaigns, which has enabled their products to trend on the platform in a “natural and organic manner” that offers a quantifiable representation of the idea of word-of-mouth.
As Christian Parks, chief marketing officer of production company Neon, told a Variety Entertainment Marketing summit in 2023, “We’ve been able to manufacture followings far quicker than on other platforms. TikTok is ground zero right now.”
That potential for swift engagement is one that celebrities and Hollywood stars have also capitalised on, helping to make TikTok the most popular platform for A-listers in every industry from movies to music and sports. It all adds up to hours and hours of free advertising for the entertainment sector and a reach that it couldn’t hope to achieve through more traditional methods.
With the bill still to be considered by the US Senate, the TikTok ban may still be more of a future spectre rather than a reality, but its potential consequences are making waves and getting some Hollywood hands eagerly rubbing together, even if, as one industry analyst told Variety this week, the results of a ban may not be “a natural redirection of traffic from the actual audience and [demographic] of TikTok, which is largely comprised of young people with short attention spans, to traditional TV or streaming platforms”. The biggest immediate winners look set to be Meta and Snapchat, whose shares are predicted to enjoy a healthy spike in the event of a ban, and who will be waiting with open arms for Hollywood marketing teams to make use of them to fill the TikTok-shaped hole in their publicity campaigns.
It may be that ultimately ByteDance takes its case all the way to the US Supreme Court and that the land’s highest judicial authority — in spite of the preponderance of anti-China, pro-Trump members on its bench — rules in its favour of TikTok on the basis of the country’s commitment to free speech and the free market.
For now though, it’s not just content creators who are losing sleep and trying to imagine a world without MovieTok and BookTok and 20-second dance challenges. The previously unimaginable nightmare is keeping everyone from Chinese and US government officials to Hollywood executives and streaming CEOs wondering when the clock may run out, what happens next and who’ll be playing them in the inevitable soon to be produced film about all of it.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.