Originally Written: Dec. 18 2024

First Appeared: Volume 22 Issue 1, published Jan. 13 2025

Last Updated: Jan. 15, 2025

With 60% of American adults under 30 using TikTok, and a similar 63% of teenagers 13-17 (Kristen Eddy), the app needs no introduction. However, despite this popularity the app now faces a ban across the United States, due to take effect Jan. 19. Why is this happening and what does it mean for the students who use the app everyday? 

Concern about TikTok among American lawmakers began as early as 2019, after findings by the Washington Post of an abnormal absence of the Hong Kong democracy protests on TikTok. The Guardian additionally found internal documents in the company expressly instructing moderators to delete videos on the 1969 Tiananmen Square Massacre and Tibetan Independence.

This began lawmakers’ concern with the influence the Chinese Government has on Tiktok and therefore its influence on the American public. A large level of concern regarding TikTok also stems from the perceived threat that the Chinese Government is able to use TikTok and the massive amount of data it gathers to spy on Americans. 

In Aug. 2020 President Trump issued an executive order banning American companies “transactions” with ByteDance and its subsidiaries. Then demanding ByteDance cease TikTok’s U.S. operations. However, with the Biden administration shortly taking over, the executive order stalled and was eventually pushed aside.

Growing worry over TikTok once again came in Feb. 2023 with the White House demanding federal agencies remove TikTok from all government-issued devices. Finally, on April 24, 2024 President Biden signed into law the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act. Requiring ByteDance to divorce itself from TikTok, selling it to an American company, or the app will face a ban across app stores within the U.S., with the act going into effect Jan. 19 2025.

Commenting on how a ban might affect our freedoms social studies teacher, Mr. Justin Absher, explained that, “That’s the danger in us having freedoms is that authoritarian regimes will use those against us… The danger, I think, is in response we tamp down our freedoms and when we do that we become like them.”

While there are legitimate fears of TikTok being used against Americans, there is still that slippery slope that Absher warns against saying that, “And the Chinese communist government does things like [interfering in elections]. But, like in the ‘20s and ‘50s, while it’s a legitimate fear you can overreact and accuse innocent people”

So, is TikTok just an innocent bystander getting caught in the crosshairs of an overly paranoid and disproportionately disconnected legislature? Then how will it impact students here at our school?

Students, unlike Congress, are largely not concerned with TikTok as an app, with Chris Oh (Class of 2025) commenting that, “Whatever information TikTok has, Instagram and Twitter and Facebook also have. I believe that TikTok would be more concerned with getting more people addicted to their apps than using that information to harm us [in other ways].”

There’s also frustration because TikTok comprises one of the largest forms of entertainment and expression for students and youth, with Oh saying that, “Literally no one will have anything to do on their phones anymore.”

Further, many across the US and some youth have turned to TikTok not just as a creative outlet but as a job. This decision will be felt by all UHS students and across the United States, and likely internationally as well.

But can something like this actually go through? It’s very likely. The act was passed by both the House and Senate and signed into law by President Biden, a decision far more powerful than an executive order. While President-Elect Trump has discussed being against the ban there is likely very little he can do, with the deadline for the decision being Jan. 19, the day before the President-Elect’s inauguration.

TikTok’s last chance may be with the Supreme Court, which is currently reviewing the constitutionality of banning the app in the United States. Especially concerns that a ban would be an infringement on the first amendment and freedom of speech. The court will be hearing arguments on the constitutionality of the law on Jan. 10 just nine days before the ban will take effect.

In a very recent development in preparation for the ban many students and youth across the nation have started to download RedNote.