The endless scrolling on your TikTok For You Page may be coming to an end. On March 13th, the House of Representatives passed a bill to ban this popular social media platform.
TikTok, used by 102.3 million people in America each month, is a popular social media platform that showcases various trendy videos ranging from 3 seconds to 10 minutes. Owned by the Chinese technology company ByteDance, the app allows users to freely edit and create videos with various speed settings, filters, and music choices. The social media hub boomed amid the pandemic as creators uploaded videos of various content trends such as food recipes/restaurant recommendations, popular audio lip syncs, business advertisements, or day-in-the-life videos. Over the last few years, TikTok has taken over social media, providing new streams of entertainment with each scroll. Many TikToks get uploaded to nearly every social media platform after first being published on the app.
According to CBS News, American lawmakers argue that TikTok threatens national security, since it allows the Chinese government to access American users’ data, especially about individuals’ locations. Additionally, TikTok could be a source of propaganda manipulation, where the algorithm pushes certain biased viewpoints. “Studies have also shown that the app can be emotionally detrimental to users’ overall mental health, negatively impacting self-esteem and shortening attention span.” However, once the House of Representatives voted and passed a bill to ban TikTok, the app flooded users’ phones with a message, encouraging them to call their senators fighting to #KeepTikTok.
The ban plans to restrict TikTok from all U.S. app stores and web-hosting services if ByteDance does not sell to an American company within six months after the bill’s enactment. As of April 2024, the bill currently sits in the hands of the Senate. If it passes the Senate, the bill would then need approval by the president. Joe Biden, when asked about the legislation, responded, “If they pass it, I’ll sign it.” However, if Donald Trump is elected in the upcoming 2024 election, he will not support the bill. He argues that “If you get rid of TikTok, Facebook and Zuckerschmuck [referring to Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook], will double their business. I don’t want Facebook, who cheated in the last Election, doing better. They are a true Enemy of the People!”
If the bill eventually passes, ByteDance will most likely challenge the law in federal court, making the road to completely banning TikTok a lengthy process.
The Emerald conducted an online student survey revealing varying opinions about the TikTok ban. Echo McDonald ‘26 responded, “I think that TikTok creates a space on the internet to scream opinions, some of these opinions being hate speech and bigotry. Banning TikTok will not solve the greater problem of hate speech and bigotry on the internet, nor fix the ongoing teen mental health crisis that is blamed on TikTok.” Lucian Cheung ‘26 argues that “people may not really care about the ban because people will likely find ways to use it anyway.” Slava Shabelsky ‘26 tells the Emerald that he would simply “use Instagram reels” in place of TikTok, which makes the app’s ban ineffective in terms of improving mental health.
In the meantime, TikTok trends and sounds will continue. The Emerald looks forward to seeing what’s next for the future of TikTok!
