TikTok ban could upend Triangle content creators extra source of income: 'It'll affect people'

RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) -- When President Biden signed the $95 billion foreign aid package the bill included a provision for owners of ByteDance, the Chinese Company that owns Tik Tok to sell the app or face a ban in the US.

Millions of users engage with the app for fun and games and also as a source of income.

Asya Ellis from Raleigh is one of those people. She goes by @MaeeRozayy online and started creating content two years ago.

"I just got on TikTok one day and I think I just started posting content and then my ninth video blew it got over 100K views."

600,000+ plus more followers and millions of views later the biggest perk of creating on TikTok kicked in.

"My check be $3,500 every month of the 15th, she explained.

She says she uses the extra income to pay for school, take care of her 4 daughters, and fund her main job as a hairstylist. An all-out ban on the app could stop her from earning the extra money.

The measure gives the Beijing-based company nine months to sell the company, with a possible additional three months if a sale is in progress. If it doesn't, TikTok will be banned.

If you already have it downloaded it likely won't disappear from your phone if a ban goes into effect but it would disappear from app stores.

This means new users won't be able to download it and TikTok will not be able to send updates to fix bugs.

Over time the app would not be useable.

"I think it's a risk that you always take when you are doing any kind of content creation because you know, you don't own the platform," said Eliana Sammons.

She also creates content in Raleigh with thousands of followers.

She has recently taken a step back to care for her growing family but says this change could be very disruptive.

"Just the way that pop culture works, there's like a lot of pop culture being started in American culture anyways, just in the globalization sense. So that would be challenging, but I don't think it would be an immediate like drop off of people being able to make their income there and be able to slowly move towards another platform that would allow you to maintain updates," she said.

Aysa agrees.

"Them taking down tik tok is closing doors instead of opening it'll affect like it'll affect people on a daily basis."

Only time will tell what will happen but some believe users may just move back over to Instagram which has a similar feature - reels.

" I don't think it would be an immediate like drop off of people being able to make their income there and be able to slowly move towards another platform that would allow you to maintain updates. And obviously, Instagram has been really trying to be that. So I think they will be even more motivated to finish that and get that algorithm to be a little bit more similar, especially if the users are really like demanding it because they need it for financial compensation," added Eliana.