TikTok creators fear a ban as the House prepares to vote on a bill that could block the app in the US

(CNN) — TikTok, and some of its users, are doing everything they can to challenge the bill that could lead to a ban on the short video app across the United States.

As House lawmakers prepare to vote on the bill this Wednesday, TikTok is encouraging users to call their representatives with a full-screen notification about the legislation. The company’s CEO, Shau Chew, is scrambling to schedule last-minute meetings with members of Congress. On Monday, he sent letters to two lawmakers challenging TikTok’s call-to-action campaign as “offensive” and “blatantly false.”

TikTok claims that banning the app will hurt the 5 million businesses that rely on the platform.

One of those companies is Nadia Okamoto, a TikTok creator with more than 4 million followers whose period products brand, August, is sold at national retailers including Target. (TikTok connected Okamoto with CNN.)

Okamoto’s TikTok account features videos about women’s health, sex education, and occasional glimpses into her personal life. It has launched product collaborations with major brands such as fashion footwear company Hoka. Her sisters are TikTok creators in their own right, one of whom uses her TikTok earnings to pay her way through college, Okamoto said.

Okamoto said TikTok’s heavy emphasis on the “For You” section makes it easier for brands like August to reach new audiences than with other apps. “They’re mainly looking for content from people they don’t follow. And so as a business, it’s something unique.”

Okamoto, who is Asian American, also suspects that a strain of fear and racism is behind the anti-TikTok rhetoric, echoing many other Asian Americans who have watched with growing alarm.

“In my gut, I feel like whether Chew testifies or just lines of questioning or comments about why this bill is being introduced, it’s in a lot of xenophobia, without a lot of evidence, behind a lot of claims, ” said Okamoto. “That there is a direct merger of the application with the Chinese Communist Party.”

Cybersecurity experts say national security concerns surrounding TikTok are a speculative, yet concerning, scenario. US officials have not publicly presented evidence that the Chinese government accessed the data of American TikTok users, an outcome lawmakers say their bill aims to avoid. US policymakers fear that China could force TikTok’s parent ByteDance to hand over data, which could help Beijing identify intelligence targets or conduct propaganda or smear campaigns.

However, creators interviewed by CNN say they have not personally seen any content on TikTok that could be described as Chinese propaganda.

“Just stop. It’s so boring,” said Gray Prance, who runs the @officiallyverygay TikTok account with her husband, Grayson Prance. “I’m more concerned about the United States having my data.”

A public service

Walking through Times Square one day in 2021, Teddy Siegel had a sudden and terrifying realization of what has happened to many visitors to New York City: He had to pee and had nowhere to go.

Siegel began hiding in stores and businesses begging with increasing desperation to use their private bathrooms, until he finally found a McDonald’s that would allow him to use the bathroom in exchange for a purchase.

To remember the location of the bathroom next time, Siegel took a video of a McDonald’s and saved it to his phone. Thus was born @Got2GoNYC, a TikTok account that aims to map all public access bathrooms in the city.

Siegel’s open, self-deprecating brand of humor and relatable outrage at the universal human experience has helped her reach over 185,000 followers on the app and nearly half a million followers across multiple platforms.

Siegel says Congress is addressing a real public health problem — the lack of available bathrooms in public spaces — and threatens to undermine their mission to help people around the world find relief quickly.

“(TikTok) has really helped me not only spark a movement, no pun intended, but has helped amplify this mission in a way that makes it very accessible,” Siegel said.

Siegel is part of a diverse group of TikTok creators who are speaking out against what they see as unreasonable restrictions on their expression and economic activity, highlighting how some of the platform’s users openly disagree with the law, which US officials say curbs the threat of espionage. will do Chinese government.

Some creators say the House bill requires TikTok to find a new owner within months or be banned from US app stores, creating an unrealistic deadline for the social media company that will almost certainly replace the organic communities they’ve built and easily replicated elsewhere. Can’t.

TikTok’s atmosphere is more casual and authentic than alternatives like Instagram, they say, and its recommendation algorithm is better at broadening users’ horizons and helping discover new creators. Those advantages are why TikTok lends itself to community building in a way other platforms can’t match, they said, and why the company should be allowed to continue serving American users.

Prince, who met her husband on TikTok, not only credits the app for her marriage, but also says it helped about 50 gay Utah residents find each other. Those people wouldn’t have met, Prince said, if it hadn’t been for a charity event @officiallyverygay held to support a struggling soft drink bar (now closed) in Salt Lake City. The only thing they had in common? They were all following the same TikTok account.