Context:
Tiktok, the global social media app seemingly is facing a ban just after the start of 2025 but this is not the first time the US has tried to ban it. The first start of suspicion around Tiktok Starts in 2019 when American media starts reporting that it is hard to find videos and info about certain events that may be bad for China, such as protests in Hong Kong or Tiananmen square content. This suspicion around security concerns continues to increase until President Donald Trump signs an executive order to force the owners of Tiktok, Bytedance, to divest or stop work within the US within 90 days. Though nothing really comes of this ban as when President Biden became president he postpones the legal battles that Tiktok is fighting and halts them overall keeping Tiktok around.
Despite it staying around, the poor sentiment around Tiktok does not stop as there are continuous reporting of the security concerns in American media as well as congress had a congressional hearing with the CEO of Tiktok, Shou Zi Chew. Thus again leading to a ban voted in by congress in March of 2024 stating they must be banned in the US or sell Tiktok to an american company, which will be enforced by January 19th, 2025.
Thus leading us to this where the US Supreme Court deems the Tiktok ban to be constitutional and thus allowing it to go into effect on January 19th, 2025 as long as congress or the president does not step in.
Current responses:
President Joe Biden recently has put out a statement stating that he will not enforce the ban meaning that he will not collect on the fines associated with the ban. Despite Biden’s effort Shou Zi Chew has responded by stating that streaming providers that keep Tiktok running need more insurance to keep Tiktok running on the 19th as they are afraid they may still be charged fines. Also President elect Donald Trump has stated he will make an executive order on the 19th stating that the ban will be moved to 90 days in advance meaning until then tiktok would be able to be open.
Closing thoughts:
I think that it is pretty wild that this ban has been in place for close to 10 months and lawmakers and political figures showed no signs of getting rid of the ban until right before it is being put into action. It is also a little odd how the only word on why this ban is going into effect is due to the “security concerns” and no more word than that. To me this whole ban just feels like a way for the US government to make a US company buy a huge social media platform, but be sure to display what it seems like to you in the comments.
Sources:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyng762q4eo
https://apnews.com/article/tiktok-timeline-ban-biden-india-d3219a32de913f8083612e71ecf1f428
6 comments:
I think it’s definitely interesting that the ban went through and that the Supreme Court unanimously voted to uphold the ban, a rarity in an increasingly divided court. I think it’s also interesting that Trump has not only promised to issue an executive order to protect TikTok, despite initially proposing to ban the app when he was in office. I believe that Trump has realized positioning himself as the leader who “saved” TikTok is just another way of cementing his position among younger voters. With many other social media platforms, such as Meta (Facebook and Instagram) and X rolling back restrictions on hate speech, I think Chew’s personal message thanking Trump is worrying. I think one of the biggest takeaways from this drama is that social media and its political dynamics are changing rapidly before our eyes. How this will continue to impact its young and impressionable audience, I’m not sure. But what I do know is that this TikTok ban will change the platform from what it used to be, how it will change though is still uncertain.
There has been a lot of upset online---from Tik Tok users and non users alike about the absurdity of banning a not directly harmful online platform before banning automatic assault riffles or other overtly worse things for our society. It's also ridiculous that the only defined issue was 'security concerns--if anything the user harm would be algorithms that have been proven to boost inappropriate/harmful content to users--- that or short form video content posing a threat to the overall attention deficit. To the security point, it is laughable that is the reason as there have been many legal battles for US companies guilty of the exact same thing, such as the forgotten legal battle with Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook, Meta, Instagram) for accusations of selling user data.
This is clearly a publicity stunt for Trump to appeal to the younger generation. By getting rid of the ban, giving creators 90 days to get off of TikTok, it is clearly used to appeal to all the younger creators and watchers that have used the app for entertainment for years. While I think there are valid security concerns with the app, if we shut down everything owned by Chinese companies, we wouldn’t have a society. There is also great economic incentive, 16.75% of TikTok users are American. I believe they want TikTok to be owned by an American company, but voting to ban it just for Trump to “reinstate it” is extremely counterproductive and doesn’t actually save the US from any security risks. I think there are way more pressing issues the government should be focusing on moving forward, but I believe they are ruining relations with Chinese companies with this decision which is bound to affect our economy.
This whole TikTok ban is a misdirection from far more pressing issues. While the government claims it's about "security concerns," they’ve been vague about what those concerns actually are. There are countless other platforms and products owned by Chinese companies that aren't being scrutinized this way, so why single out TikTok? It seems more like an effort to force TikTok into U.S. ownership, using patriotism as a cover, rather than actually protecting the country. The timing also feels intentional. Trump delaying the ban to appear as the one "saving" TikTok is a clear political stunt, playing with public emotions while Congress and other lawmakers have been sitting on this for months. If this is really about national security, why wasn’t action taken sooner? Meanwhile, we’re facing way bigger challenges as a country like climate change, healthcare, housing crises and instead of addressing those, lawmakers are focused on banning a social media app.
I personally thought at first that this ban was a matter of national security and China's ability to steal data from the US, which the government was attempting to prevent. While this may be the case, or the intent for some, the recent ban seemed to be a stunt of publicity for Trump. It seemed strange to me when opening the app after it was banned, there was a pop up notification that stated something along the lines of how Trump was working on a plan to get the app back. Then, less than 24 hours later, the ban was extended, and another pop up was displayed among opening the app, thanking Trump for his efforts to reactivate the app. This was a clear giveaway to me that all of this was for praise and publicity, especially since he had previously expressed wanting to ban the app while he was in office. I wonder if he still plans on doing so, though this time he could take credit for whatever security reasons he claims to be banning the app for, and people would deem him a hero.
The supreme court’s decision to uphold the Tiktok ban highlights the concerns due to the data security, but then also the sudden switch and the app functioning again after less than 24 hours,supposedly due to Trump's actions simply made no sense. The timing of him supposedly saving the app and being praised for being the one to bring it back seems like it was all planned just to gain him attention. He extended the ban, which for now will keep the app running until they come to a conclusion about Tiktok’s ownership and data security. But people are also worried about possible algorithm changes, and fear the app will start pushing information that the government wants citizens to see.
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