‘This would for sure put me out of business’: Natick proprietor against bill to ban TikTok in US

NATICK, Mass. — Ken Cadieux relies on TikTok for his business.

He has more than 116,000 followers on the app, where he shares his advice on healthy eating after weight loss surgery.

“It’s been life-changing,” said Cadieux. “Didn’t mean for it to happen, glad that it did, and I love that I get to help people with like the same kind of issues that I had .”

Cadieux used to weigh more than 500 pounds, and after weight loss surgery, he’s come up with methods and recipes to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

So he published a book with those recipes called “Bite Sized,” and he’s busy shipping them out from his apartment in Natick.

He says he’s sold more than 13,000 copies of his book over the last year all thanks to TikTok.

“TikTok is the nucleus of my business, like it’s responsible for my following, my customer list, my orders, TikTok shop has been a huge partner for me – they’ve been investing in education and helping customers find me, it’s huge,” said Cadieux.

He is now worried about the bill passed by the House Wednesday to ban TikTok if the Chinese company that owns the social media app doesn’t sell it.

“If they were approaching this issue from the perspective of we want comprehensive privacy laws across all platforms protecting kids, everyone, I would be like, ‘If that’s in the best interest then fantastic,’ but it’s not the case, it’s just TikTok, they’re being singled out,” said Cadieux.

Now he just hopes this bill to ban TikTok won’t pass the Senate.

“This would for sure put me out of business, I don’t have the resources to pivot,” said Cadieux.

It’s unclear whether the Senate would also pass this bill to ban TikTok.

If so, President Biden has said he would sign it into law.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.

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