After years of threats from U.S. politicians, the TikTok app got banned.
“Several months ago, when I first heard about the ban, I thought that it would never actually come to fruition,” social studies teacher Carrie Bowman said. “I thought that it was just politicians talking and blustering like they always do.”
On Jan. 19, TikTok was removed from app stores in the United States, and users received messages announcing its unavailability, prohibiting U.S. users from using the app.
In April 2024, former President Joe Biden signed legislation that gave the owners of TikTok, ByteDance, until Jan. 19 to find a new owner based in the United States, according to Congress.gov.
The ban didn’t last long, and in less than a day, it was available for U.S. users once again. The app works again for those who already had it downloaded, but it is not available in the app store. Although the app is allowed on U.S. servers once again, there has been talk about the app having changed post-ban.
“I was actually really surprised because I thought the government would at least hold on to what they were saying and keep it banned for more than eight hours,” senior Maddex Hutchcraft said. “I haven’t noticed much, but I know some people have said they’ve noticed some differences.”
For some users, the post-ban TikTok environment has led them to stop using the app.
“When TikTok came back up, I was pretty uncomfortable with some of the pop-up messages that made it very clear that there seemed to be an unnecessarily close relationship between TikTok as a company and the new administration, so I personally have stopped using TikTok since the ban came and was lifted,” Bowman said.
Congress began creating legislation due to concerns over TikTok potentially distributing American data to the Chinese government, according to Congress.gov.
“When I first heard about the ban, I thought perhaps this was an overreaction and it was politically motivated,” social studies teacher Bob Buck, J.D., said. “I’m not an expert, but it seems pretty harmless from what I’ve seen and students that I’ve talked to. I didn’t really think it was that big of a deal. I know there’s two different groups that have two different opinions.”
Whether it was constitutional or ethical has been the topic of much debate and concern.
“I think it’s a violation of the First Amendment, but if they were required to sell it to an American company then perhaps that may transfer over into other industries where we have foreign companies that are forced to sell,” Buck said. “It might start a precedent that could be difficult for foreign companies, and then they may react and do the same to us.”
Along with the ethics behind the ban, here has been speculation around the true motives of the ban.
“I think that there are concerns over the Chinese Government, but I think that most of their claims are unfounded, and I think it’s mostly coming from U.S. companies wanting to own and profit off of TikTok rather than have someone else,” Hutchcraft said.
However, when it comes to the ban being lifted, other motivations have been questioned.
“I think the motivating factor for bringing TikTok back was pretty much a political ad to make Donald Trump look better to people and the younger generation,” senior Ben Gum said. “I don’t think it’s really a risk to national security. I think the CEO of TikTok doesn’t have any real motive or relation to people that want to harm us.”
In an executive order signed by President Donald Trump on his first day back in office, he extended ByteDance’s deadline by 75 days, giving ByteDance more time to find an American owner. However, some users were not excited about the potential change in ownership.
“I think that in the future, it’s going to be bought by an American company, sadly. It’s better in an American company’s hands, but I think that it’s being done so for a greedy reason, and I don’t like the reasoning behind it,” Hutchcraft said.
