TikTok Star Overtflow Reveals Why The App’s Potential Ban Could Be ‘Horrifying’ & ‘Devastating’

For US-based TikTok employees and influencers who rely on income from brand deals through the app, a ban could have ‘devastating’ effects, according to one popular creator.

PJ “Overtflow” Brittain, 29, is one of the more influential TikTokers with 1.7 million followers on the popular social media platform. The gamer, who is known for posting Fortnite and Call of Duty content to his TikTok channel @overtflow, says the app’s potential US ban could be “devastating” to “tens of thousands” of creators. HollywoodLife spoke EXCLUSIVELY with Overtflow to share his feelings on the potential ban after Donald Trump issued executive orders on Aug. 6 that would restrict TikTok from operating in the US if they were not sold by its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to a US-based firm by September 15.

“As far as the potential ban I think it’s a scary thing,” he said. “I know for a fact that there’s probably 10,000 creators using Tiktok full-time, along with thousands of USA-based TikTok employees and that would be putting all of those guys out of a job, which would be horrifying for them. For influencers, like 90 percent of my income comes from TikTok and brand deals that I have through that so for me it would definitely be a devastating thing.”

Trump has been against any Chinese owned social media apps in the US marketplace, fearing national security concerns. But Overtflow explained, “You know, every app collects data, every app tracks what you do, every app sees what you’re interested in, so that they can serve you ads, so that they can serve you more personalized stuff, and more personalized videos, more personalized ads. Every app on your phone does this so I think that TikTok is no different in that sense.”

As for rumors of Microsoft possibly considering the app purchase, the gamer said, “Obviously if we get to keep Tiktok around that would be awesome, but it would be scary because you don’t know what another company is going to do, right?” the popular gamer explained.

“As of right now, TikTok is a perfectly run app and I think that it’s such a fair app,” Overtflow added. “If you make something that’s watchable, that’s a consumable piece of content, then it’s going to get spread around. It’s going to get a lot of views and with other platforms, it’s almost like they have this politics game where you have to have a lot of followers first before they’ll promote you. You have to already have a million followers for your videos to go viral and TikTok is something that gives everybody the chance and the hope to go viral.”