From Forbes
A TikTok Ban Would Be A Godsend For YouTube And Instagram
By Richard Nieva
If TikTok was banned tomorrow, Ahmad Alzahabi knows exactly what he’d do. The Syrian-American creator, who goes by the handle The Golden Balance, posts videos of himself cooking dishes from cuisines around the world. He first gained success on TikTok, where he now has 6 million followers, but if the app was suddenly booted from the U.S., as some lawmakers hope, he says he would “go harder” on another platform that has already demonstrated its longevity: YouTube.
“That's the space to be, because of its history,” he told Forbes. “It's proven that no matter what other platform comes out, it's still very legitimate...”
There are, of course, key differences in those markets, but the irony of TikTok’s woes is that it could meaningfully help the big tech giants, which U.S. lawmakers have tried to corral for years, said Coye Cheshire, a professor of social psychology at the UC Berkeley School of Information. “We already know there’s huge popularity in these short-form videos. I don't think that desire is intrinsic to just TikTok,” he said. “If that major player isn’t there all of a sudden, it becomes something where you can migrate over to YouTube and Instagram...”
Coye Cheshire is a professor at the I School researching sociological social psychology and group processes, with a focus in social exchange, cooperation, and trust in technology-mediated environments.
