A ban on TikTok appears to be imminent. The Supreme Court on Friday upheld a law that could mean the end of TikTok as it is known in the United States, and now everyone involved is in dismay. Influencers are fleeing to rival platforms such as Xiaohongshu, a China-based app also known as RedNote. Politicians are trying to delay the ban, including those who initially supported it. TikTok employees are probably wondering what they'll be doing at work next week.
But some are wondering whether a future without TikTok is really a great thing for America. The complete demise of TikTok would mean the virtual demise of one of the largest social media-slash-entertainment platforms. That way, instead of billions of hours of attention, millions of people can target new content, preferably granularly to individual users, and continually touch the cultural zeitgeist in unexpected and strange ways. You'll be craving short viral videos to update.
That's what made TikTok so popular in the first place. However, if other emerging platforms have a better idea, the US is open for business. And there's nothing new about one app being retired and replaced by another.
This type of innovation has driven the social media industry like a flywheel since its inception in the early '20s. Platforms like MySpace become popular and dominate attention for a few years, but then become obsolete when new platforms like Facebook come along with better features. Innovation gets the wheels spinning, but boredom, culture change, and platform hardening – the way platforms begin to serve users and eventually serve their own purposes – slow them down again. Masu.
In the case of TikTok, there are clearly other forces at play: geopolitics and the capricious power of the U.S. government. It remains to be seen whether the government will enforce the ban or if TikTok will find a way to maintain its U.S. operations. Nevertheless, even if TikTok's demise becomes a reality, it doesn't necessarily mean its hundreds of millions of users will return to the warm embrace of Instagram and YouTube, which offer comparable short-form video products. In fact, millions of soon-to-be former TikTok users are joining platforms like RedNote to protest TikTok's ban and the power of Big Tech.
There are many reasons why RedNote probably won't become the next TikTok. The biggest factor is the fact that Chinese government censors are not welcoming the influx of American users or the politically sensitive content they may bring with them. There's a good chance these “TikTok refugees” will be kicked out of RedNote in the coming weeks.
That means the race to become the next TikTok begins now. Indeed, many TikTok users will fall back on the familiar and aging platforms owned by Meta and Google. TikTok's ban also injects millions of users seeking their new favorite social media app, whatever it is, into the decentralized network of servers known as the Fediverse that powers platforms like Bluesky and Mastodon. It turns out. Mark Cuban even said ahead of the Supreme Court ruling that he would fund a TikTok alternative built on Bluesky's AT protocol, an open decentralized network for social apps. Whether or how that will happen remains to be seen.
“The media landscape hasn't shifted from one medium to another,” said Rebecca Rinkevich, executive director of the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard Law School. “It has been divided into hundreds of fragmented channels unique to each individual, and the attention economy is more competitive than ever. The battle for eyeballs is driven by novel features and algorithmic advantages. We will win.”
But before we delve into the interesting and often confusing mechanics of the Fediverse, it helps to understand why so many people don't want to return to Instagram.
Improving social media performance
The TikTok ban mechanism may be an outlier in the history of social media company lifecycles, but the demise of a platform could lead to the emergence of a better platform.
Take Napster for example. The file-sharing app energized college campuses in the late 1990s and early 2000s by providing access to free digital music. This upset recording artists and ultimately led to a lawsuit that killed Napster. But within a decade, a Swedish startup called Spotify would take over the music industry, based in part on the Napster model of peer-to-peer file sharing.
Spotify is a true revelation, offering essentially unlimited music for a fairly low monthly fee, which has made it worth nearly $100 billion. But Spotify is currently plagued by complaints that its platform isn't as user-friendly as it used to be. Some call this platform a decline. Some people call it encitization.
In the words of Cory Doctorow, who coined the term, entitlement is “how platforms disappear. First, platforms are good for users. Second, platforms are good for users.” ” Then they abuse the users to make things better for their corporate customers. Finally, they exploit business customers to get all the value back to themselves. In this 2023 essay, Doctorow goes on to argue that TikTok was well on its way to encityization because it “couldn't resist the temptation to show things.” . that It's not about what you want to see, you This is a problem, considering TikTok's entire reason for existing was to show you what you want to see. (There's a reason the page is called “For You.”)
That's why even without Congressional action, TikTok couldn't remain the trending, cutting-edge social media platform forever. It was already in a cycle that we saw on MySpace, then Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. Basically, a platform that made its name on the back of its usefulness and user popularity has since declined into something less useful but still profitable. Over the past few years, TikTok's decline has manifested itself in the form of aggressive advertising and inevitable shopping features.
“Everyone was interested in this platform, and Instagram and YouTube, because it initially offered something exciting and free and added value to online interactions,” said Rory Meal of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Because they provided it to me,” he said. “Over time, it became diluted by advertising and manipulative content, making it an unpleasant experience for users.”
Of course, there's still a chance that TikTok could die again someday in the United States. A law passed by Congress last year requires the social media platform's parent company, ByteDance, to sell or close its U.S. operations by Sunday. By law, Apple and Google must stop offering TikTok in their app stores after that date. The app will continue to work, but ByteDance will not allow updates, resulting in reduced functionality over time. However, ByteDance reportedly plans to shut down the app by the deadline if it cannot secure a lifeline.
But you may not need to do that. The Biden administration said it would not implement the ban before President Donald Trump's inauguration on Monday. President Trump, who called for a ban on TikTok in 2020, is reportedly considering issuing an executive order to “save TikTok” soon after taking office, and TikTok CEO Shou Zi Mr. Chew is also expected to attend. Congress passed the law and Biden signed it, so legally President Trump probably can't do it with an executive order alone, but he can order the Justice Department not to enforce the ban. . In that case, Apple and Google could continue to allow users to download the app, ByteDance could continue to update the app, and would not be subject to fines of up to $5,000 per user who has access to the app. Probably not. That's a big “what if”.
But even with TikTok's remarkable survival, the cycle of decline won't stop. Millions of TikTok users were already prepared to leave before the ban took effect, prompting a flurry of alternative video apps like RedNote, Lemon8 and Flip.
So not everyone is watching Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts by default, and it remains to be seen if they can and will return to TikTok. They may be ready to start something new.
Fediverse by another name
If the conversation surrounding a TikTok replacement sounds familiar, it's because there was a very similar conversation a few years ago when Elon Musk bought Twitter. Many predicted that Mr. Musk would turn the platform into a right-wing echo chamber, which he did, hoping to shift attention elsewhere.
Looking for a new place to post has led many people to the idea of Fediverse. This is a terrible name, but a good idea.
Fediverse is an umbrella term for a new approach to social media that relies on open source software and a distributed network of servers. Here's a helpful definition from David Pearce of The Verge: “It is an interconnected social platform ecosystem based on an open protocol called ActivityPub, which allows content, data, and follower graphs to be portable between networks.”
In theory, social media followers follow you from network to network. You can also set up a single feed that displays content from multiple platforms at once.
What if you didn't have to choose one TikTok alternative and could instead see Reels, Shorts, and Snaps in one place? That's not possible because Instagram, YouTube, and Snapchat are closed ecosystems. However, there are signs that some legacy platforms are embracing new ways of doing things. Meta gained attention last year by allowing Threads users to cross-post to the fediverse platform and follow fediverse accounts. There is also a growing number of developers using fediverse-friendly protocols to build more open alternatives to major platforms.
Bluesky emerged as the most promising Twitter alternative last year. One reason for this is that we provided users with a familiar and friendly front-end experience without going into the details of protocols, servers, or federal principles. (Musk's freedom from politics regarding X probably didn't hurt, either.) Bluesky is basically what Twitter used to look like. And its success laid the foundation for similar projects.
Days before the Supreme Court's TikTok ruling, a startup called Pixelfed released a mobile app for an open, decentralized photo-sharing service. It's basically Instagram, but for the Fediverse. There was also something called Flashes that came out around the same time and was built on top of Bluesky.
The fun of an “interconnected social platform ecosystem” extends beyond photo sharing. Pixelfed developer Daniel Supernaul also built a decentralized TikTok alternative called Loops. The app hasn't been released yet, but you can see how things are going. When one major platform loses popularity or shuts down, others rush to fill the void with new approaches, unique features, and even completely different architectures. .
It's still hard to say which, if any, of these diverse projects will become the next global sensation. After all, creating the next Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, or TikTok is notoriously difficult. The right people need to come together for an app to not only work, but become a sensation. And you will need something special.
Katrin Weller, professor at Heinrich Heine University of GESIS Düsseldorf, said: “It is important to understand the timing of the formation of networks properly.'' “Very small changes in technology can make a big difference.”
There is little evidence so far that any of these Fediverse projects have the novelty, momentum, or innovative touch to reach a billion users in the next few years. Despite Bluesky's success, it still has less than 30 million users compared to 275 million Threads users. By the way, TikTok has 170 million users in the US.
Again, no one knows what technology will emerge next. TikTok started as a lip-syncing app for teenagers, but within a few years it evolved into an engine of internet culture and influence. Facebook started as a campus directory for college students, but has since evolved into a misinformation cesspool that also sells VR headsets.
Or Elon Musk might also buy TikTok and split it into Company X. Then people might actually flee to the Federation.
