Atlanta

Tik Tok is back for US users, but for how long? Atlanta influencer making back-up plans

ATLANTA — TikTok is available again to users after being shut down for around 12 hours Saturday night into Sunday.

Even though the app is back online, people still cannot download it in the Apple or Google app stores.

After spearheading the process to ban TikTok in 2020, President-Elect Donald Trump now says he plans to sign an executive order Monday, on his first day in office. He said at a rally Sunday the app helped him win the election.

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“As of today, TikTok is back, so you know I did a little TikTok thing,” Trump said. “We have a guy, TikTok Jack. He is a young kid, like 21 years old, and we hired this guy, and I went on TikTok. Can you believe what I will do to win an election? And we went on TikTok. And Republicans have never won the young vote, the youth vote. They win a lot of votes, but they never won the youth vote. We won the youth vote by 36 points. So, I like TikTok. I like it.”

The order will give the app a 90-day extension to continue to exist while the Chinese-owned company finds a buyer which is a requirement of the law. It is an option President Biden had but said he was going to leave for Trump.

In April of 2024, bipartisan lawmakers passed a bill after concerns the app creates a security risk for Chinese influence on United States users. On Friday, the Supreme Court upheld the law.

Atlanta based influencer, Melissa Tovar has over 300,000 followers on TikTok. She said the back and forth has been overwhelming. She said she is hopeful the app will not go away permanently, but she is still making back up plans.

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“We’ve all understood that this job is temporary, just like any job that somebody has, you know, you can get let go or laid off,” Tovar said. “Luckily, we do have kind of something to bounce back from. If we happen to not be able to work for 3, 4, 5, 6 months, we can direct all our energy towards Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat.”

Mental Health workers say the success of TikTok is based on its algorithm.

“Tik Tok leaned in to targeting dopamine and targeting the brain responds and reward centers,” said Andrea Brock, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker at Thriveworks based out of Dallas, Georgia.

She said if TikTok goes away again, people can suffer mentally, even physically.

“If your body is feeing agitated, if you’re feeling irritated by everybody or everything around you, there’s a good chance that there is some portion of addiction that is affecting you,” Brock said.

She said people need to make sure they are exercising, going outside, and getting sunlight, connecting to family, and doing things they enjoy.

“Giving yourself time to settle into a new normal, to identify and create new habits, it’s an opportunity,” Brock said.

TikTok has around 170 million users in the country and around 170,000 active users in Georgia.

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