KANSAS CITY, Mo. — TikTok’s parent company must sell the app before it could be banned in the U.S.
President Biden signed the bill into law Wednesday.
KSHB 41 has continued to speak with businesses and users in Kansas City who rely on the app.
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"Because of how TikTok's algorithm is set up, it's allowed a lot of our TikTok videos to get hundreds of thousands of views, which is really cool and for us as a small business it means we're able to be seen all of over the nation, potentially all over the world," Cassidy Garr with McLain's Bakery said.
If ByteDance, the China-based parent company that owns TikTok, doesn’t sell the app, it could be banned in the U.S.
One Kansas City-area real estate agent said the looming ban already has her changing her strategy.
“I get almost 40% of my business from social media in general, and these are random people from the Internet that I don’t know that reach out because they see me on TikTok and want to buy a house or sell a house," Rachel Kilmer said.
It's caused her to have to get creative with meeting clients in a way that still plays off of social media trends, such as a Taylor Swift-themed housing seminar.
“I think there’s this cognitive dissonance you have to agree to when you carry an iPhone. Like any app on your phone, you download it and agree to all these terms and conditions that none of us ever read," Rachel said.
ByteDance has already said it will sue, and called this move unconstitutional.
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