TikTok might be on the brink of being booted from the app store in a matter of months.
The TikTok ban has been a recent debate in the House of Congress. On Mar. 13, the House passed a bill that would lead to a TikTok ban in the United States if the China-based owner refuses to sell it to another company.
Why this is an issue
While the company has denied the allegations, there has been a raised suspicion that it shares sensitive user information with the Chinese government. Several lawmakers have expressed their concerns to the public over this issue. TikTok has previously tried to assure all its users that their information was safe and held confidential against ByteDance employees in China. The basic reason this idea of banning Tiktok was even brought up was because lawmakers are afraid that ByteDance (the company that owns Tiktok) could be forced by the Chinese government to hand over the personal data of its millions of US users.
The Bill
Politicians from both US parties first introduced the bill to ban TikTok. It was passed on Wed. March 13. and gives Tiktok only 5 months to sell before it is deleted from US App Stores. The bill was easily passed with a vote of 352 to 65, which now goes to the Senate, the app’s fate is still to be decided. President of the USA, Joe Biden said he would sign the measure once Congress passes the bill. Once the measure is signed, it will go through a thorough review process before becoming an official law. “Separate from your parent company ByteDance, which is beholden to the CCP (the Chinese Communist Party), and remain operational in the United States, or side with the CCP and face the consequences. The choice is TikTok’s,” says Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers in an AP News article.
What is TikTok saying/doing about this?
Tiktok has been framed for stealing its user’s personal information before, but they have denied the allegation every time. “There’s no public evidence of that type of harm. And even if there were, a total ban on TikTok wouldn’t be the only answer,” Ashley Gorski, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s National Security Project said in an article.
If you look up “Tiktok Ban” on the TikTok search engine, a message pops up and once you click on it, it opens up a page called “Stop TikTok Ban”. The message informs the user that the House of Representatives has just voted to ban TikTok and allows you to enter your zip code to call your senator and ask them to vote no on the TikTok ban. The hashtag “KeepTikTok” currently has 120k posts underneath it.
How does this affect teens?
According to a bar graph from Shopify.com, Tiktok is the 5th most popular social media app with a total of 1.56 billion users, the majority being teens. In some ways, this app has become part of many teens daily routines, and they cannot see their lives without it. “If TikTok goes I’ll leave all social media. This is the only one with substance and heart.” a user commented under a TikTok video about the ban.
Moreover, there is an alterantive to TikTok. Many TikTok users have also transferred to watching Instagram Reels, which work almost exactly like the TikTok for you page: like, comments, saves, and shares. If TikTok gets banned, users will most likely move to Instagram.
More Information
For more information on this, watch the video linked or call the senator in your area.
