In her lost house in Montana, behind Bozeman airport, window closed by curtains, on her big blue sofa, Heather DiRocco proudly shows her videos posted on TikTok. In one of them, the former navy sergeant does a sketch on a misadventure that happened to her during an identity check at the entrance to a military base: 9.5 million views! In another, this mother introduces her young son to a vestige of the 1980s, a compact disc and its iridescent reflections: 3.3 million views.
Such are the mysteries of the Chinese social network TikTok, which make the fortune of influencers. With 200,000 subscribers, Heather DiRocco earns about $400 a month from TikTok. Above all, she has been spotted by brands she promotes, which adds $1,000 to $3,000 to the household budget. A godsend for his family, even if the bulk of the couple’s income (about 120,000 dollars a year) comes from elsewhere, in particular from a cannabis store.
But his small online business could stop with the adoption of a law voted by the Parliament of Montana and signed by its governor, Greg Gianforte, which provides for the prohibition of the application on the territory of Montana. “To protect the personal and private data of Montana from the Chinese Communist Party, I have banned TikTok [dans l’Etat] », the Republican governor tweeted on May 17. A first in the United States, for a ban which is supposed to come into force on 1er January 2024.
The vote was accelerated by the overflight of this state by a Chinese spy balloon this winter and comes in the context of general mobilization against the application, as evidenced by the tone of the hearing in March of the CEO of TikTok in Congress, Shou Zi Chew, whose violence smacks of McCarthyism.
A complaint funded… by TikTok
Except that the inhabitants of Montana are furious to see themselves deprived of their favorite application. Along with five other residents of this state, Heather DiRocco has filed a complaint for violation of the first amendment to the American Constitution, which guarantees freedom of expression. Among the plaintiffs is Carly Goddard, who lives on a ranch near Custer along the Yellowstone River and does multiple promotions for different brands. The young woman claims in the complaint that with her 101,000 followers she manages to triple the family’s income. Or even Alice Held, a student in Missoula, who shares with her 216,000 subscribers on TikTok her multicolored tattoos like her adventures in the great outdoors of this Rocky Mountain state as vast as half of France.
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