TikTok Traffic Ramps Back Up as Creators Look Elsewhere

TikTok’s traffic has returned to normal following a steep drop after a recent shutdown.

Usage of the popular video app dropped 85% during its brief U.S. ban earlier this month but has since come back to original levels, CNBC reported Friday (Jan. 31), citing data from Cloudflare Radar.

“DNS traffic for TikTok-related domains has continued to recover since service restoration, and is currently about 10% lower than pre-shutdown level,” David Belson, head of data insight at Cloudflare, told CNBC in a statement.

DNS, the report notes, stands for “domain name system” which converts website names into IP addresses used by browsers to access internet resources. Cloudflare’s Radar hub displays internet trends and insights with DNS to track internet traffic.

On Jan. 19, TikTok went dark in the U.S. after the Supreme Court upheld a law signed by former President Joe Biden last year requiring TikTok’s owner, China-based ByteDance, to sell the app or face a ban. Google and Apple pulled TikTok from their U.S. app stores in accordance with the law, which was prompted by national security concerns.

But hours into Jan. 19, TikTok began restoring service when President Donald Trump — who himself had proposed banning TikTok during his first presidency but has since reversed course — said he would hold off on enforcing the ban. When Trump took office the next day, he signed an executive order extending the deadline to April 5.

Since then, a number of potential bidders have emerged to purchase TikTok from ByteDance, with Trump floating the idea of the U.S. retaining 50% ownership of the app. Artificial intelligence (AI) search engine Perplexity has proposed such a deal in its bid to merge with TikTok.

However, CNBC notes that many TikTok creators are now branching out to new platforms as the network’s future is undetermined.

“I’ve kind of made peace with it going away,” said Dylan Lemay, who has 10 million-plus followers on TikTok. “When they threatened to get rid of it the first time, that was my wake-up call to say I need to make sure that I’m prepared if this ever does happen.”

Meanwhile, PYMNTS wrote earlier this week about TikTok’s role as a social commerce driver, with research showing that 20% of retail shoppers are influenced by written content they encounter on it and other platforms.

“When you rarely leave the house, whoever’s showing up on your phone will have a lot of sway,” that report said. “TikTok isn’t just a platform for showcasing boxed-in dance moves — it’s an economic force within the hermitage.”