At roughly 8:30 PM on Sunday, January 19th, a law was enacted that banned the use of TikTok in the United States. The next morning, American citizens were surprised to find that the app had been restored due to the efforts of President Trump.
The app wasn’t supposed to become inaccessible until midnight, so when it shut down multiple hours in advance, users were agitated. Once the law banning TikTok went into effect, a message flashed across the screens of users in the United States that read, “Sorry, TikTok isn’t available right now. A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S. Unfortunately, that means you can’t use TikTok for now, We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office. Please stay tuned!” The next day, many were anxious to see if the app had been re-established. When American users opened TikTok, another message flashed across their screens that read, “Welcome back! Thanks for your patience and support. As a result of President Trump’s efforts, TikTok is back in the U.S.! You can continue to create, share, and discover all of the things you love on TikTok.”
U.S. politicians have been worried that the Chinese government could use TikTok as a way to spy on the American people or covertly influence the U.S. public by minimizing and maximizing certain content. Their worry is warranted, according to Congress. Chinese national security laws require organizations to cooperate with intelligence gathering. Some senators follow the belief that the Chinese government getting their hands on keystrokes, phone records, text messages, and people’s whereabouts could be a danger to not only U.S. citizens’ national security but also their personal security. Other senators think that the American government banned TikTok because of accusations and not proof.
Although initiatives have been taken to safeguard American data on U.S. servers and ease lawmaker’s fears, the justice department found it insufficient, as it still allowed some of our data to flow to China.
A handful of U.S. officials have been critical of the divest-or-ban law, which was passed with bipartisan support. They are in agreement with TikTok and think that it infringes on Americans’ free speech rights.
The irony in this situation is that President Trump was the first one to point out the potential issues that could arise if we kept TokTok functioning in the U.S. He convinced an overwhelming amount of Congeresspeople of the risks. A few years later, once the app was set to disappear from America for good, he heavily pushed for it’s reinstation.
The Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling was based on the justification that China, through TikTok and its parent company ByteDance, can amass vast amounts of information from American users. The Supreme Court’s justices found that Congress did not violate the First Amendment by taking action to violate the threat. The court also refused to support the government’s interest in ending China’s purported covert manipulation of content, which the Biden administration had declared as a national security justification for the law.
Xiaohongshu, which translates to Little Red Book, or Redote, is China’s version of Tik Tok. It focuses on lifestyle content and contains some of the features of Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest. Roughly 3 million Americans migrated to the app once they recognized that they no longer had access to TikTok. Rednote wasn’t designed for English speakers. One of Rednote’s key components is its content algorithm. It focuses on its user’s interests rather than the people they follow.
However, a vast amount of people have been resorting to Instgram to provide them with the same kind of entertainment that TikTok once did.
“I personally chose to stick to Instagram after deleting TikTok,” said sophomore Sophie Salvaor. “I think that getting rid of TikTok might be even healthier for me. I won’t procrastinate as much and I’ll be more focused on things like school and my relationships with my family and friends.”
The future of TikTok is still undetermined. For those who deleted it, the app is no longer available to download in the Apple or Google Play stores. Some people have been able to restore their accounts, but most are just waiting for them to return to their devices.
