The Harmful Effects of Banning TikTok

I cannot believe that I, along with many of the US population, am mourning an app. It seems silly, and I am sure older generations are praising this TikTok ban and saying it’s good for our generation to get back outside, but they wouldn’t get it. This was the one place where many could be themselves. For me, this was a spur-of-the-moment quarantine download and soon became one of my main platforms for travel and trauma dumping content. I found communities online that I never would have found on Instagram. I have friends from all over the world I met through here. I’ve seen myself grow and change through these silly stupid videos. This is also the place where I and many others didn’t feel the harsh censorship of other apps. 

In my opinion, TikTok’s algorithm is unmatched. Any other app—and I am looking at you, Instagram Reels—will never compare. It’s so much faster and filters content at triple the speed. There is a reason why people bag on reel users for being three months late to every trend. 

As of right now, TikTok will be banned in the United States on January 19, 2025. Many decisions are being made, and it may be postponed, but it’s best to assume the worst. There are petitions all across the internet to stop the ban, and many senators, like MA Sen. Ed Markey, have officially introduced legislation to delay a nationwide ban on TikTok. 

Shou Zi Chew, the CEO of Bytedance (TikTok), used to be an intern at Facebook before becoming Mark Zuckerberg’s biggest competitor. Meta even tried to launch their own competitor to TikTok called Lasso in 2018, but it never caught on. It was shut down in 2020. 

Chew attended several congressional hearings about the ban in 2023. He defended TikTok against accusations that it was a national security threat. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark, repeatedly questioned Chew about his nationality and possible affiliations to the Chinese Communist party, even after repeating himself several times that he was Singaporean. This clip went viral, and many found it racist and a scapegoat by the US Government. 

Seeing the hypocrisy, Chew made a connection at Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica Scandal and stated that TikTok didn’t collect more data than American social media platforms. “I don’t think ownership is the issue here,” he explained during the hearing. “American social companies don’t have a good track record with data privacy and user security.” 

 This seems like an odd cop-out for the government to claim rather than the real issue: this is a media they cannot control. 

Historically known, in this day and age, most of our US media outlets are bought by billionaires. The same goes for social media platforms which are therefore targeted. TikTok is not under the same jurisdiction, and they fear that. Instagram and Facebook take my information every day asking me to “allow them to see my precise location” when I sign on every week. TikTok has not asked me that once. 

TikTok has over 150 million users in America and is, therefore, getting too big for government officials to ignore. It was all fun and games when it was musical, but now it’s “too powerful” and must be stopped. 

People are speculating online, but really, it’s no surprise that the real reason the government doesn’t want the American people on this app is that it’s built such a large community and easier for us to band together. The rich control most of the media outlets in this country and put out selective content but TikTok does not.

I’ve seen this banding together firsthand during quarantine. In 2020, former President Trump’s campaign promised huge crowds at his rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma but failed to do so. Partly, the reason for this was that TikTok users and fans of Korean pop music groups claimed to have registered potentially hundreds of thousands of tickets for his rally as a prank. I remember seeing this all across my “for you page.” 

In a more recent example, with the Palisade fires going on up in Los Angeles, for the first week, I only saw the fact that Mexico was sending up firefighters to help out on Tiktok. I feel the only reason it got to Corporate media sources the following week was because it built so much traction of “you don’t see this on the news” videos circling around. 

Another reason why this band doesn’t make sense is how good it was for the American economy and small businesses. TikTok drove $14.7 billion in small-business owners’ revenue in 2023 and contributed to $24.2 billion in U.S. gross domestic product last year. TikTok supported a minimum of 224,000 jobs in the United States, with the app’s greatest economic impact seen in California, Texas, Florida, New York, and Illinois. 

Small businesses will be impacted greatly by this ban. Chloe Joy Sexton (@Chloebluffcakes on TikTok) was a plaintiff at the Supreme Court case earlier in January. 

“In 2020 I was fired from my job after telling my employer that I was pregnant. I was also struggling to care for my mother who I eventually lost to brain cancer. I then began raising my 7-year-old sister. I started creating TikTok videos to financially support my family and as a creative outlet where I discussed everything from parenting and grief to my love of baking. My videos went viral and allowed me to jumpstart my business, Chloe’s Giant Cookies. I have now shipped thousands of cookies all over the world and even published a cookbook. As a small business with almost no capital, I rely almost entirely on TikTok to market my products. No other platform can replace it. I have tried posting the same exact content on other social media apps without anywhere near the same success”. 

Now, with word circulating on TikTok of the ban, many are frustrated, but in the great American people’s way, they make it funny. Rednote, which many are describing as the Chinese version of Tiktok, has hit the app stores as the #1 most downloaded app during the Supreme Court’s decision this week. Because the US government claims that they want to ban TikTok for not giving personal information to China, thousands of Americans have willingly signed up for this app out of spite.

Americans are so unserious, yet it is so impactful… It’s like kids defying their parents (Americans and their government). “You want to take away our app so bad, FINE” and then go to the China version of TikTok. People are SWARMING that app not just from America but all over the world; it’s becoming a huge trend. 

Some people from China asked, “Is it true that Americans have to work two jobs to survive?” with the “Yes, unfortunately” response. We’re being called ‘TikTok refugees’ and are given a funny, warm welcome as we scroll. Americans are being asked by kids in China to help with their English homework and it’s just honestly a good time. They want us to hate each other so bad. Their plan blew up in their face. 

On the anger side of things… in all seriousness, this is kind of messed up to see. All of the above stuff is funny, and it’s cool to see Americans and alike come together. However, the United States government, which historically cannot agree on anything, agreed on banning an app before they ever did a single thing to help stop kids from getting killed in their classrooms. National security risk? Yeah right.

Currently, I am just sitting back and watching it unfold. The Supreme Court is thinking over their decision, and then the Senate put in a bill to postpone it for 200-something days and also, there’s word the app will go completely dark on Sunday. Whichever it is, that was the first app I saw where people around the world came together when it was needed. There was no unwarranted sensory, unlike Facebook and Instagram. I hope it doesn’t go away, but if it does, it will be missed.

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• tiktok ban