Faith Stallone cannot risk missing the birth of Pickles the Cat’s baby.
So, given the will-it-happen-won't-it-happen uncertainty of a national ban of the TikTok app, the 17-year-old high school senior from Wantagh took action. She contacted the creator of the pregnant cat’s TikTok account to ask, "Does Pickles have an Instagram page?"
TikTok temporarily shut down in the United States late Saturday night, after the Supreme Court unanimously upheld a law requiring ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns the platform, to sell it by a deadline of Sunday. But it reappeared hours later, and users now see a message that says in part, "Welcome back! As a result of President Trump's efforts, TikTok is back in the U.S.!"
President Donald Trump, after taking office on Monday, signed an executive order to keep TikTok operating for 75 days.
He previously had posted on Truth Social that he would issue an executive order "to extend the period of time before the law’s prohibitions take effect, so that we can make a deal to protect our national security."
The United States has said the app, which has 170 million U.S. users, poses national security concerns regarding data collection.
But Long Island users weren't taking any chances on losing access to the content creators they follow. Stallone has also contacted other content creators she follows on TikTok — she tends to watch videos on fitness, skin care and cooking, she said — to find out how she can keep up with them on alternative online platforms such as Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts.
WHERE MIGHT TIKTOK USERS GO NEXT?
Many TikTok devotees have downloaded a Chinese version of TikTok called Xiaohongshu, known familiarly as RedNote, which is primarily in Mandarin, with new American users dubbing themselves "TikTok refugees." Lauren Jenkins, 19, of Oceanside, a sophomore at Binghamton University, is one of those. "It’s kind of cool to see how everyone in America is migrating over to this new app and how they’re interacting with a new country. People are Google translating what other people are saying," she said.
Some say that moving to RedNote is a form of protest of the TikTok ban — the government is banning one Chinese app, so they will just move to another Chinese-owned app instead.
Chanelle McKenzie, 22, who grew up in Medford and is now a senior at SUNY Purchase, said she is using a video-based app called Clapper while she waits for a new algorithm-based app called Neptune.
INSTAGRAM REELS, YOUTUBE SHORTS
Other Long Islanders interviewed have migrated to the more mainstream Instagram Reels and/or YouTube Shorts, both of which, like TikTok, feature videos by content creators. Many U.S. creators already post simultaneously on multiple platforms.
That is the case for Grace Mary Williams, a Huntington-based creator with 2.6 million followers on TikTok. "I’ve been telling people I’ll be on Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat," she said. "I’ve been making sure to push all that content onto these other channels to be proactive."
Jasmine Ramlowtan, 20, of Merrick, a junior at the University at Albany, says most people her age have turned to Instagram Reels. "A lot of people are on Instagram already, so it’s more convenient," Ramlowtan said.
Ingrid Menor-Olguin, 19, of Huntington, a student at Iona University in New Rochelle, said she has reopened her YouTube account so she can keep up with the influencers she follows. But she said these other apps aren’t the same at TikTok, without the sounds, filters, and algorithms that TikTok has that match users' viewing preferences to the content they are fed. She calls Instagram features "a little bit dated and a little bit bland."
Whatever ultimately happens with TikTok, users across Long Island and throughout the country say it has been essential to their lives.
"I’ve been using the app since it was something called Musical.ly," Lauren Jenkins said. She joined it in 2015; it was purchased by ByteDance and merged into TikTok several years later. " ... It’s part of my routine," she said, "what I talk about and laugh about with my friends and family."
Beth Whitehouse writes about families, parenting and great things to do with the kids on Long Island. She’s been a Newsday editor and shared a 1997 Newsday staff Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the crash of TWA Flight 800.
