The news about TikTok’s possible ban has rapidly made its way around the country, as many users are upset about the fact that their years’ worth of making videos might all disappear.
The possibility of the loss of TikTok extremely upsets many from Gen. Z, as well as myself, as it is even now one of my favorite forms of entertainment; but have you ever sat on your bed watching videos and wondered how they know what you like and dislike? I have, especially when you are simply talking to your parents about maybe a trip to Disney World or Universal and all of a sudden videos of Disney characters and Universal rides are popping up on your “for you” page feed. The truth of it is, they are, in the creepiest way possible, watching your every move on social media, making sure to include your likes and interests into your feed in order to keep you glued to the app. Then when you take a break from the app, you all of a sudden are getting random notifications trying to draw you back.
TikTok, a Chinese-owned company, possesses the suspicious factor about the fact that China has attacked a bill going through the U.S. Congress that could ultimately see TikTok banned in the U.S., calling it unjust, as a result of data harvesting based on research. TikTok collects private data details such as location, what specific device is being used and which other apps are on that device. Another similar test concluded that in comparison to other popular social media platforms, TikTok collects comparable types of data to track user behavior, the difference is most of those companies are American-owned.
TikTok has been a threat to national security for a while now, so much so that they have attempted to ban it in 2020. The U.S. government had announced that they were considering banning TikTok upon the specific request of former President Donald Trump, who viewed the app as a national security threat and therefore tried to pass a similar law banning TikTok for all U.S. users. Although it may not be clear how this app could be stealing personal information to use it in their favor, it is still happening and can cause major issues in the future.
An offer was made to the Chinese owners that they could sell their very successful company to an American owner, otherwise TikTok would be banned in the U.S.. This would be a major loss to the company, as many of its users are U.S. citizens. Almost 150 million users of TikTok are from the U.S. making about one-third of the company under American use.
The U.S. fears that the Chinese government could force the ByteDance company, TikTok’s owners, to hand over TikTok’s 150 million user’s data in the U.S.. TikTok continues to insist that it would not provide foreign user data to the Chinese government.
The legislation passed by the U.S. government is giving ByteDance about nine months to sell TikTok to a new buyer, with an additional three-month grace period if needed, before any ban would take effect, meaning that the deadline of the sale would most likely happen or the ban of the app would most likely take effect at some point in 2025.
At the end of the day, TikTok is doing more harm than good for U.S. users and citizens who may not even realize the effect it has on their life. TikTok places things into the heads of its users and practically stalks social media activity in order to keep that user using the app. The attempts to ban the app have been approved by the Supreme Court and according to President Joe Biden going into effect unless the Chinese decide to give over their company.
