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TikTok Ban: A Turning Point in Digital Media Regulation?

TikTok, a social media platform originating in China, is one of the fastest-growing apps with over one billion users worldwide. For the past few years, President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden have passed legislatures in an attempt to ban TikTok. Now, the platform is facing public scrutiny once more. How will this ban affect the future of digital media platforms? Will this become the turning point in digital media regulation?


Illustrated by Angie Che

By Navya Chitlur, Gavia Grewal

Edited by Catherine Qin

 

TikTok, a social media platform originating in China, is one of the fastest-growing apps with over one billion users worldwide. This platform allows users to create short videos which can be viewed and shared worldwide. In early August 2020, concerns grew that sensitive user data was leaked and could be accessed by the Chinese government through TikTok. The data collection was supposedly dangerous because it allowed the Chinese Communist Party to be able to access Americans' personal information which could possibly allow China to track US citizens and collect information to blackmail. Collecting Americans’ data and using it against them is unauthorized and illegal. To protect citizens and the nation’s security against this, former President Donald Trump, attempted to ban the app by executive order but courts blocked the endeavor. Three years later, President Joe Biden enacted the No TikTok Government Devices Act which was in action by 2023. This act prohibited the use and download of TikTok on all federal devices. The social media platform had to be removed from all federal government and corporation devices. A month later, TikTok faced allegations of spying on American Journalists. TikTok CEO, Shou Zi Chew, defended the accusation claiming that the company takes consumers’ privacy seriously and is independent from the Chinese government.

Many countries have already banned TikTok for various national security and data privacy concerns, as well as the concern of the growing rates of minors using social media platforms. India was the first to ban the platform in 2020 because of the border tensions between them and China, as well as similar concerns voiced by other countries. Many other Asian countries banned TikTok for the same reasons, such as Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Indonesia. The trend of banning TikTok to protect national security has taken an uprising in 2024 after Australia and Canada both have begun banning the platform on devices. 

On March 13, the US House of Representatives passed the legislation Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, stating that ByteDance could either sell TikTok within a six-month time frame or allow the app to be banned from all app stores and browsers across the US. The bill could lead to the erasure of the app from all app stores across America, including both Apple and Google’s stores, and the two would face government penalties if they choose to allow the app on their platforms. The bill was passed on April 24, 2024, with an overwhelming majority vote of 325 - 65 by the US Senate, giving TikTok time until January 24, 2025, and a 90-day leeway. Within that time frame and for however long the bill is being challenged, TikTok users and content creators will have complete access to the social media platform. 

Despite the short amount of time that has passed since the bill, many companies have already lined up for a chance to buy TikTok from ByteDance, including large American corporations or investors such as Steven Mnuchin. Although TikTok has constantly attempted to prove its viability with user data, The US Government feared its collection of data such as location. They also feared that the company would be able to fuel the spread of misinformation about current controversial political events such as the Israel-Hamas war by manipulating the algorithms. “For years we've allowed the Chinese Communist party to control one of the most popular apps in America... that was dangerously short-sighted,” says Republican Senator Marco Rubio. Additionally, the impact of the bill led to a political division within America itself, especially with the 2024 elections. Former US President Donald Trump, who had favored a TikTok ban during his time in office, is now choosing to oppose the bill passed by President Biden in order to gain support from his younger audience for the upcoming election. On the other hand, Biden is also a previous user of the app himself, with many of his campaign videos having been posted on the social media platform, sparking even more intense controversy. Many states have also hopped on board with the bill’s proposition and banned TikTok on government-issued devices and local browsers or college WiFi networks. However, this proved ineffective as students would simply use alternatives such as cellular data to access the app. A movement was made by the governor of Montana, Greg Gianforte, who signed a bill to prevent TikTok from operating within the state, though this was countered by TikTok who sued the state for violating the First Amendment, leading to the legislation being put on hold. 


Recently, TikTok made more attempts to counteract the bill by encouraging users to call lawmakers and oppose the ban. Lawmakers have claimed that since then, they have been flooded with calls from people who want them to repeal the act. With the banning of an app as popular as TikTok, many controversies and complaints are expected. TikTok themselves have spoken out against the bill, claiming it was unconstitutional, and have also placated the panicked masses of TikTok users claiming that they would fight for users’ rights in court. According to the social media company, 170 million Americans and 5 million businesses use the app, meaning that banning the platform entirely would be the equivalent of depriving the users of the right to free speech and the businesses of their ability to advertise and sell products. “The UN Charter on the Rights of the Child is quite specific: young people have a right to information and a right to play, so I think it can be challenged on those grounds,” says Andrew Przybylski, professor of human behavior and technology at Oxford University. 


With the grand number of users of the app including over one million content creators and five million businesses, these people would struggle immensely with the ban due to their sudden unemployment and the loss of buyers for their products. Businesses would no longer be able to advertise or sell their products through the app, which many, especially small businesses, have been doing. Content creation has had a steady uphill climb in employment rates with over 200 million content creators worldwide, and the loss of that job in society would lead to many either losing their jobs or getting their dream jobs taken away. Content creators would be forced to move their accounts to other platforms where they could potentially lose the entirety of their audience, or would have to build their viewership up to where it was on TikTok. However, with the mass popularity of the platform and its evident addictiveness, dismantling it would create massive progress in the nation’s emergence from the online world. According to Appinventiv, in the US alone, there are more than 102 million monthly active users, all of whom spend an average of 26 hours on the app on a monthly basis. 


As the TikTok-oriented society continues to get challenged, the culture of “brain-rot” and the assimilation of misinformation would decrease and become replaced with a more productive and less virtual society. Though there would still be other platforms that remain, such as Instagram, which promotes a similar culture as TikTok, the nation’s consumption of social media is bound to decrease significantly. The decrease of TikTok and social media culture would also lead to a decrease in the factors it influences such as consumer culture and overstimulation. Without TikTok, trending items like Stanley Cups would not have such a big chokehold on the country and would therefore decrease the sales for products like those, ultimately leading to a decrease in consumerism. Additionally, the banishment of the app would lead to a nationwide recovery from long months or years of constant overstimulation. The app’s short videos paired with an algorithm targeting the viewer’s dopamine receptors have been an equation for the population’s diminishing attention span and awareness. Due to this, when the app gets banned, it will most likely lead to an exit to the constant overstimulation, and therefore, longer attention spans.

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