What a joke.
In less than 14 hours, TikTok, owned by ByteDance, shut down in the United States on Saturday night before quickly resurrecting on Sunday.
You don’t need me to fill you in on the “how” and “why” of a battle involving two global superpowers, the United States and China, and years of back-and-forth between three administrations that learned valuable lessons .
The bottom line: TikTok is back in business.
Over the past week and as recently as last night, several contacts within the toy industry asked me why I hadn’t weighed in on the situation or provided readers with a list of potential alternatives to this device used by more than 170 Americans. ’s popular platform. The truth is, I did take part in the discussion when I joined The Toy Guy, Chris Byrne and John Baulch of Toy World UK for our annual end-of-year discussion. Playground Podcast. I said the platform wasn’t going away, citing President-elect Donald J. Trump’s recent affection for it.
There simply isn’t any real possibility for TikTok to be anything other than a short break. I took a nap.
Killing TikTok = bad for business
If you put aside personal opinions about the platform, its content, or its users, ultimately, TikTok will be a place where millions of small businesses thrive. From individual content creators and crafters to small manufacturers and independent toy and gift shops, halting production is killing livelihoods.
Some people may have legitimate privacy concerns, but digital anonymity is a myth. Things get messy when users are a product, a valuable commodity to advertisers, and they give up their rights by building a business on a platform they don’t own. This is why since the birth of MySpace’s “creator economy”, I’ve been saying that any creator, influencer, media personality, blogger, expert, etc. must maintain their own platform as a central home base. Because if the rug is pulled, the lights are turned off, or the terms of service change, you might get hit, but you’re never completely out.
In the toy industry, this means being on every social media platform while maintaining a strong platform of your own – starting with a proper official website. This may also mean connecting with influencers and brand advocates who themselves have extensive networks with software like FUNfuential [a division of Adventure Media & Events, publisher of The Toy Book] can help manage this.
I can immediately think of about 10 toy companies we’ll see at International Toy Expo in the next few weeks that haven’t updated their websites in years. Why? They put all their eggs in a social basket that, as we just saw, can evaporate instantly.
a bad precedent
The biggest problem with the TikTok ban is forcing the company to sell its business.
Although China needs to cooperate with the United States and allow platforms such as X to operate freely within China, I still think of the old saying “two wrongs do not make a right.”
In our field, what if China suddenly decided that a major toy manufacturer could no longer make or sell toys within its country without selling its business to a Chinese company?
American companies hire workers in other countries, just as international companies hire American workers in American factories.
Generally speaking, the world of absolutes is a terrible place.
Things work better when we work together.
Now, let’s get back to the point.
