What is happening?
On March 13th the senate signed a bill for banning TikTok with a 352-65 person vote. Although this doesn’t necessarily mean it will be, considering it was signed in April of this year not much has happened so far. The bill gave the company of tiktok, ByteDance, 9 months to sell it to a non-Chinese company before it can officially be banned from America.
Sophomore Josie Lesinski says, “I don’t think it should be banned because a lot of people use it as their job to be influencers, small business owners, etc. If it got banned they would no longer be gaining money.”
Why do they want it to be banned?
The U.S. Government is trying to ban tiktok in concern that the Chinese government has access to users’ data through the platform such as location information, online activity and other concerning details. They have been stating for a long time concerns about the platform but not much has been done until recently. This ban will most likely happen unless China conforms and sells the app to a non- chinese owner.
Does Tiktok really collect your data and is it unsafe?
Tiktok had admitted to collecting people’s data while they use the app such as, network activity, IP address, geolocation related data, and browsing history. Although they don’t believe that this makes the platform unsafe considering it can’t monitor the entire phone’s data. Now someone can delete their account and the app and tiktok can not track them anymore. Though some people believe this makes the platform unsafe while others believe it is perfectly fine.
Is Tiktok banned anywhere else in the world?
There are a few countries that have already enforced a national ban in their country. These are Afghanistan , Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, Somalia and the highest downfall India, causing ByteDance one of their biggest markets. As Well as other countries who have a partial ban on some devices. These are the bigger countries like the U.S., United Kingdom, France, Australia, Canada, and many more.
How are people responding?
Sources support saying many American Tiktok users do not support the ban (61%) while only a few believe it should be banned (10%) and the rest of the percentages (29%) of people are unsure on how to feel about the ban or just don’t care. Although out of Americans who don’t use tiktok the views on it are significantly different. There is about a tie of people who think that it should be banned (42%) and who are uncertain how to feel (43%) while the minority in this group of people is 15% for those who think it should not be banned. Many people are concerned partially because a lot of small businesses thrive off of the app, so a ban would seriously decrease sales.
What Students and Teachers are Thinking
Tiktok is very commonly used among high school students and there are lots of beliefs upon them on whether it should or should not be banned. The difference between how many high schoolers want it to be banned is much smaller than adults with only 18% of students and 38% being adults. Many are of the opinion that it is not going to be banned and don’t have much to worry about, though this is without them doing and researching and realizing it could be very likely.
Then there are other who don’t really have an opinion on the matter. Freshman Jax Diamond says, ” I don’t really care because I don’t use it that much.”
Sophomore Addyson Wolff’s opinion on the matter is, “ No I don’t think it should be banned because it gives a way for people to connect all over the world.”
Mrs. Pavely said, “It probably will not be banned but can’t we have a time limit? People get so caught up in scrolling they forget to do things like chores or study for a test.”