TikTok User Bans are Increasing. Authors, Why It’s Important to Diversify Your Social Media Platforms.

Unfortunately, this is another product of online bullying and cancel culture.

Photo by Solen Feyissa on Unsplash

Last week, another TikTok user I follow got banned. She criticized an author’s actions at a conference and online bullies mass reported her account. She was banned within 2 days of posting her controversial video.

She’s the 6th person I know of that has had their account banned on TikTok in recent months. The 5 before her were all romance authors.

It’s not a new story. Someone says something on the internet that other people don’t like. Then a group of cyberbullies gets together and uses their numbers to get this person banned, canceled, threatened, and worse.

More than anything, this is a product of our hate culture. These banned users will never know who reported them. It’s the emboldened anonymous that can make and break your career.

Luckily, with TikTok, you can repeal and get your account reinstated. However, sometimes you can’t. And when you can’t, your options are to create another account or abandon the platform altogether.

Some of you may be thinking, who cares? Why not just create a second account or go somewhere else?

Let me educate you about the power of “BookTok”, TikTok’s rabid book fan world.

What is BookTok?

BookTok is a community of readers. Readers who are passionate about the genres they read. It’s the modern-day version of “word of mouth”, except that it’s millions of times larger, faster, and has an overwhelming groundswell of support all over the world.

In case you didn’t know, BookTok is a force to be reckoned with when you’re an author. For some authors, it’s responsible for driving most of their book sales.

…BookTok has helped authors sell 20 million printed books in 2021, according to BookScan.

When I decided to start writing on the Kindle Vella platform, I had to make some decisions about where and how I would advertise my story. So I did some research and went all in on the TikTok platform after joining some…