With 1 billion monthly active users, TikTok is one of the most popular social media apps of our generation. This isn’t the first time a rumor of the app being banned has circulated the internet. This time last year, the FBI and The US Justice Department officially launched an investigation on TikTok. A bill was introduced to ban the platform nationwide, but nothing came of it. But now, the bill is back and seems a lot more serious this time.
This time, the bill has passed the House of Representatives, and the gist of it is that if the Chinese company ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, doesn’t sell the app, it will be banned nationwide. The bill would still have the pass the Senate to reach the president’s desk and Biden has said he would sign it. The bill gives ByteDance roughly five months to sell TikTok. Because TikTok is the life and soul of most teenagers in 2024, they are rightfully upset and freaking out over this harrowing news.
TikTok has always been a controversial app throughout the United States, with the app being banned on government-issued phones back in 2022, and by 2023 at least 34 states have also banned the app from government devices. Around 50 universities in the United States have banned the app from on-campus WiFi and devices issued by the university. The state of Montana attempted to issue a statewide ban of the app in 2023 as well, but the law was struck down.
While the government can easily remove TikTok from the app stores and block you from using it in the United States, this will be easy to avoid. Most TikTok users are aware of the use of VPNs, and will most likely do everything in their power to make their favorite social media app available to them again with this method. A VPN is very easy to use and it’s even possible to find a free one on the app store, giving you full access to TikTok once again.
Most people believe that banning TikTok is the wrong choice, and forcefully tearing down the community it has become over the past few years would be damaging to TikTok users. Many of the users on TikTok earn their main source of income on this app, supporting their lifestyle as an influencer, meaning with the ban of this app, all of those people would be forced to find other employment, which is a huge inconvenience and a very stressful situation to be in.
But even with this, others believe TikTok is a toxic environment, and hurting the teenagers of today, making them want to sit and stare at their phone all day instead of engaging in human interaction with their fellow classmates. They choose to lay in bed all day scrolling through TikTok instead of working, and it was scientifically proven that being on your phone all day can be damaging to your mental and physical health.
For now, whether or not TikTok is really going to be banned hasn’t been confirmed yet, but there’s still a very high chance that it could be within the next few months.
