‘You Own Nothing Here on Social’: Meta Outage, Looming TikTok Ban Has Creators Questioning How Much of Their Business They Really Control

Meta confirmed that its services were down on Wednesday just before 2 p.m., with the mass outage affecting most of its products, including Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads, and Facebook Messenger.

Instagram users reported issues on DownDetector starting around 12:30 p.m., and Meta followed up on X that services were 99% back.

Related: I Have Over 214,000 Followers on TikTok. Here’s What I’m Doing Right Now In Case a Ban Happens.

However, for influencers and creators across the Internet, it amounted to almost half a day of work missed. And with a possible TikTok ban looming just weeks away, many are beginning to realize they might not have as much control over their content and businesses as they originally thought.

Earlier this week in a court filing, TikTok said that if the ban goes through next month, creators and small businesses in the U.S. could lose $1.3 billion in revenue and earnings—in one month.

“Those numbers would only increase if the shutdown extends for more than a month,” said Blake Chandlee, president of global business solutions for TikTok, in the filing.

Related: A TikTok Ban Could Threaten the Livelihood of Many Entrepreneurs — Here’s How Businesses Can Protect Themselves

This has creators who rely on social media to make a living wondering what’s next.

During the outage, many creators moved to X to post about how they needed to start to diversify. While moving to YouTube was a popular option, one old-school medium seemed to be the top choice: email.

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In addition to building an email list, joining other social platforms, and starting newsletters, creators suggest tailoring content to each platform instead of just lump-posting the same videos everywhere to give content a more authentic-to-the-platform feel (like longer videos for YouTube, for example).

Others suggest reaching out to big brands with influencer marketing programs, like Walmart and Amazon, to diversify your content and options.

The TikTok ban could take effect Jan. 19.