Exonians React to TikTok Ban
By AUDREY KIM, LEVI STOLL, LEON XIE, and MEGHAN TATE ZEE
A decade ago, it would have been ridiculous to suggest that a foreign nation’s video-sharing app would become one of the world’s most prominent social media platforms, going toe-to-toe with tech giants Meta and Google in the United States. But TikTok, pioneered by Chinese company ByteDance Ltd., emerged onto the scene in 2016 and took the world by storm.
Only two years after its inception, the Greenhorn app became the most downloaded in the United States. After rocketing past 1 billion downloads the next year, it dethroned Google as the most popular app of 2021, and is now the fifth-most downloaded app of all time, holding a place on over 1.5 billion devices. However, as of late, it seems that TikTok may disappear from the United States’ social media network as quickly as its meteoric rise took place.
In April 2024, the United States House of Representatives passed legislation to ban TikTok, if not sold by ByteDance, in a 360-58 vote, with the Senate giving the “OK” by a similar majority. The Biden administration refrained from amending the law. Its effective date was marked as Jan. 19, one day before Donald Trump’s inauguration as the 47th President of the United States, and between two administrations with differing views on the topic. Trump has suggested a 90-day delay of the ban to give buyers more time to make offers, but no concrete plans have been made to delay the app’s removal from US devices.
Though sometimes mere seconds in length, the videos on TikTok constitute an industry of over $10 billion in the US alone which 170 million users contribute. Though TikTok has a substantial user base in older individuals as well, its primary foothold is with the younger generation. A vast number of the Academy’s students have TikTok on their devices, and as the ban looms over every American user, Exonians have a lot to say on the matter.
Similar to many other users in the United States, their initial reactions were incredulous. Upper Ella Shea said, “At first, I thought it wouldn’t be a big problem when [the government] announced the ban since they’ve tried this before and nothing came of it.”
Upper Izyaan Burney expressed his belief that the law would take effect. “I think it could happen. I remember once when Fortnite was banned - before, when it was on lots of people’s phones, right? One day it just stopped working since Epic Games was forced to shut it off, so I think the U.S. Government is capable of enacting a mass ban like that.”
Burney continued, “I’d say my reaction to the ban was probably a positive one. Especially after Covid, I think a lot of our generation has become extremely addicted to social media in the past couple of years. I think that even though the ban will initially be tough to move on from, in the long term, it’ll benefit student wellbeing.”
Prep Max Loghinov found an inconsistency in the ban of TikTok in the growth of another Chinese video-sharing app, Xiaohongshu or Red Note. “You can still download Xiaohongshu, that’s not banned. The TikTok ban is just fear-mongering the people. They’re making sure that people are scared of what China might be able to do even though it’s completely wrong.”
Shea said, “I spend around 90 min on Tik Tok and this app does a lot of damage to people. It’s a way to make others insecure about themselves. It takes away from more important tasks that I need to complete.”
Others noted the augmentative impacts of TikTok on their communities. Prep Nathan Liu described his findings of some benefits of TikTok. “It creates a place for people to express themselves and make money. It has increased the US economy by a decent amount as there are thousands of small businesses on there that work through the platform, their only form of income.”
Loghinov found nuance in the effects of TikTok, stressing the nature of the app’s variable algorithm. “The algorithm can be very harmful or beneficial depending on how the user uses it. In a lot of cases, addictive videos tend to get more popular. While [TikTok] does do more harm this way, it can help a lot of social relationships if it doesn’t become an addiction.”
While TikTok may or may not be banned in the near future, the faltering passage of its ban will provide a resounding closure to the end of Biden’s tenure as president and the beginning of a second Trump administration.
