Meta’s Instagram Faces Headwinds If TikTok Wins Ban Battle

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Dec 28, 11:14AM EST

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Meta’s Instagram Faces Headwinds If TikTok Wins Ban Battle — © Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

The TikTok ban was voted on by Congress and signed by President Biden. The Chinese company took the case to the federal court system. It has worked its way to the Supreme Court, and a decision is imminent. The Trump Administration, which will become official on January 20, recently urged the court to give it time to “seek a negotiated resolution” between the government and TikTok. It commented that the ban raised “sweeping and troubling” challenges to free speech. The most likely winner of the ban was Meta Solutions’ (NASDAQ: META | META Price Prediction) Instagram. That “win” becomes less likely.

The TikTok ban was based on the idea that it is a national security risk and a way for China-based parent ByteDance to gather information on Americans. This information would be given to the Chinese government. During the debate about TikTok’s future, Congressman Cathy McMorris Rodgers said, “Today, the CCP’s [Chinese Communist Party’s] laws require Chinese companies like ByteDance to spy on their behalf.”

According to some estimates, the list of TikTok competitors are Instagram, Snapchat, and X. TikTok has a US user base of 170 million. Instagram has 140 million. The two also compete outside the US. According to The Media Lab, “As TikTok and Instagram vie for supremacy, the competition between the two platforms has intensified. TikTok’s algorithm-driven content discovery and engagement have reshaped the social media landscape, challenging Instagram’s long-standing dominance.” A great deal of money is at stake. TikTok’s US ad revenue is expected to be over $10 billion this year.

TikTok could get a reprieve in the US. ByteDance has the option to sell it to an American company. So far, ByteDance has turned that option down. If a full ban goes into effect, the $10 billion a year TikTok ad base is up for grabs. If that happens, one big winner would be Instagram.

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.