Ophelia Nichols, known as “shoelover99” on TikTok, is among the scores of online creators and influencers whose livelihood has been suddenly thrown into potential chaos.

Nichols, who lives in Alabama, has over 12.5 million followers on TikTok, an app she uses for creating lifestyle content and delivering rants in her deep Southern accent. Her posts can attract millions of views, and she makes most of her money through promotional partnerships with brands like Home Chef.

But after this week’s actions in Washington, D.C., Nichols doesn’t know what happens next.

On Wednesday, President Biden signed a bill forcing the divestiture of TikTok from Chinese parent ByteDance or else it could face a national ban. The legislation passed the Senate on Tuesday alongside a package to provide billions of dollars in aid to Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan.

“TikTok allows small businesses and creators to find their people in their community,” Nichols told CNBC, ahead of the bill’s signing. “It gives everybody the opportunity to be able to provide for their family in a way that they have probably never provided for their family before. It has changed people’s lives.”

A ban could take years, and TikTok is likely to challenge it in court. But in the meantime, there’s a lot of uncertainty.

Small and mid-sized businesses that used TikTok supported 224,000 jobs, according to an Oxford Economics study paid for by TikTok. These businesses generated nearly $15 billion in revenue and contributed $24.2 billion to the U.S. gross domestic product in 2023, the study said.

Nichols joined a number of other TikTok creators in traveling to the Capitol to oppose a potential ban. She wanted to speak out against it and explain to lawmakers how she runs her business using the app. Nichols said TikTok didn’t ask her to join the protest.

“You’re taking away our First Amendment rights,” Nichols said. “People don’t understand. This is a community. It’s a family. Whatever it is that you enjoy or that makes you smile, you will find someone else on the app that loves that too.”

According to the CNBC All America Survey from March, 47% of participants supported a ban or a sale, while just over 30% opposed a ban.

TikTok hosts over 585,000 posts, predominantly consisting of videos, under the hashtags #KeepTikTok and #SaveTikTok, where users vocally oppose the ban. Many testimonials underscore TikTok’s significant role in providing online entertainment, while others implore the preservation of the current platform, crucial for their livelihoods.

The effort stems from ByteDance’s $7 million marketing strategy to mobilize American opposition against the ban. Tactics ranged from heartfelt testimonial videos featuring TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew to in-app banners advocating for users to call their senator, and even physical protests staged outside the Capitol.

Following Biden’s signing of the bill on Wednesday, TikTok called the measure unconstitutional and said it will challenge the law in court.

“We believe the facts and the law are clearly on our side, and we will ultimately prevail,” the company said in a post on X. “This ban would devastate seven million businesses and silence 170 million Americans.”

Lawmakers have long argued that TikTok is a national security threat to the U.S., on the grounds that the Chinese government could use TikTok data to spy on American users and spread disinformation and conspiracy theories.

Competing platforms have tried to encourage users to post their short-form videos to their platforms. Last year, YouTube Shorts changed its monetization program, offering users 45% of ad revenue across multiple posts. However, users said the payouts weren’t as high as on long-form videos.

“The culture of each platform is different,” said Spehar. “The discoverability algorithm is different. The saturation is different. Trying to break into YouTube is really hard because it’s such a saturated market.”

It’s gotten harder elsewhere, too. Last year, Meta shut down its program to pay short-form video creators on Instagram and Facebook. Creators have complained that they don’t make anything while receiving hundreds of thousands of views on the app. However, Instagram head Adam Mosseri hinted that the program might come back in 2024.

Tony Youn, a plastic surgeon with 8.4 million TikTok followers, said finding a big audience is difficult. His videos on everything from weight loss and plastic surgery to funny clips about sitting in traffic are often viewed hundreds of thousands of times.

“I have purposely diversified just because it’s something, as a business person, I know you have to do,” Youn said. “But not everybody has done that.”

Youn added that part of his anger with the TikTok bill has to do with the fact that there are “people who have much smaller voices than myself who are going to get really hurt by this if this happens.”

WATCH: Senator Markwayne Mullin talks passage of Tiktok ban

Meta will report first-quarter results after the bell Wednesday.

Here’s what analysts are expecting.

• Earnings per share: $4.32, according to LSEG.
• Revenue: $36.16 billion, according to LSEG.
• Daily active users (DAUs): 2.12 billion, according to StreetAccount
• Monthly active users (MAUs): 3.09 billion, according to StreetAccount
• Average revenue per user (ARPU): $11.75 according to StreetAccount

Meta has been a favorite on Wall Street since early 2023, when CEO Mark Zuckerberg told investors it would be the “year of efficiency.” The stock almost tripled last year, trailing only Nvidia among members of the S&P 500, and is up another 40% in 2024.

The Facebook parent has been clawing back digital ad market share after a dismal 2022. At that time, the company was reeling from Apple’s iOS privacy update and macroeconomic concerns that led many brands to rein in spending.

Zuckerberg spearheaded an initiative to rebuild the ad business with a focus on artificial intelligence. On the company’s last earnings call in February, finance chief Susan Li said Meta has been investing in AI models that can accurately predict relevant ads for users, as well as tools that automate the ads-creation process. 

Analysts expect Meta to report a 26% increase in revenue from $28.65 billion a year earlier. That would mark the fastest rate of growth since the third quarter of 2021, which was before Apple’s privacy change started to show up on other companies’ balance sheets.

Meta is benefiting from a stabilizing economy and surge in spending from Chinese discount retailers like Temu and Shein, which have been pumping money into Facebook and company-owned Instagram in an effort to reach a wider swath of users. Analysts at Baird said in a Monday note that slower spending from China-based advertisers could be a source of concern in the first-quarter results. 

Still, the Baird analysts see continuing momentum for Meta, and said they have “reasonably high” expectations for the company because of its improving advertiser tools and success in short-form video monetization. 

Investors will remain focused on Meta’s costs, which have been central to the stock rally. Early last year, Zuckerberg said the company would be better at eliminating unnecessary projects and cracking down on bloat, which would help Meta become a “stronger and more nimble organization.” 

The company cut about 21,000 jobs in the first half of 2023, and Zuckerberg said in February of this year that hiring will be “relatively minimal compared to what we would have done historically.”

As of Dec. 31, Meta had a global workforce of 67,317, down from a peak of more than 87,000 employees in 2022, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

Jefferies analysts wrote in a report last week that it’s “hard to argue with excellence.” The analysts expect Meta to beat on its first-quarter results and provide better-than-expected guidance for the second quarter. As of now, the average analyst estimate calls for revenue growth of 20% in the second quarter to $38.29 billion, according to LSEG.

“We continue to be encouraged by META’s ability to sustain double-digit rev growth, given the combination of higher engagement from AI investments, and increasing advertiser ROI & efficiency,” the Jefferies analysts wrote.

Meta’s Reality Labs unit, which houses the company’s hardware and software for development of the nascent metaverse, continues to bleed cash. Analysts expect the division to show an operating loss of $4.31 billion for the quarter, on top of the $42 billion it’s lost since the end of 2020. Revenue in the unit is projected to reach $512.5 million, a 51% increase from $339 million a year earlier.

Executives will discuss the company’s results on a call with analysts at 5 p.m. ET.

Tesla shares surged 15% on Wednesday morning after CEO Elon Musk said the electric-vehicle company plans to begin production of new affordable EV models by early 2025.

Musk’s comments came during Tesla’s earnings call on Tuesday after the company reported disappointing first-quarter numbers. Revenue fell 9% year over year, its steepest annual decline since 2012.

The company previously expected to start production of the new EV models in the second half of 2025.

Tesla reported 45 cents in adjusted earnings per share on $21.3 billion in revenue, falling short of the 51 cents in expected earnings per share and $22.15 billion in expected sales, per LSEG.

Revenue dropped from $23.3 billion a year before and from $25.17 billion in the previous quarter.

Analysts of Bank of America said in an investor note Wednesday that Tesla’s first-quarter results and leadership’s commentary “addressed key concerns” and “revitalized the growth narrative,” prompting them to upgrade the stock from neutral to buy while maintaining their $220 price target.

They also expressed bullish optimism that Tesla demonstrated a positive business outlook as it prepares to launch new vehicle models and license its driver assistance system.

“In the near-term the tide in news flow appears to suggest the risk to the stock is skewing more positively,” the analysts wrote.

UBS analysts on Tuesday reiterated their neutral rating of Tesla stock and lowered their price target to $147 from $160, saying they remain skeptical of the company’s talk.

“Increasingly, TSLA is a play on autonomy, and while progress is being made, we are cautious on near-term viability,” they wrote in a note. “We see limited growth for current lineup and lack of clarity on what these ‘new vehicles’ could bring.”

— CNBC’s Michael Bloom contributed to this report.