TikTok is one of the most popular social media platforms. TikTok was released in September 2016, and ever since its release it has been the most used social media app for teenagers. There have been numerous attempts to ban TikTok from the United States because of its “addictive nature” and a lineup of legislative reasons since its release. Though these attempts to ban the app are mostly unsuccessful, According to “Gannonknight”, President Biden passed a law in 2022 banning the app from federally owned devices. The main reasoning behind this law involves the parent company of TikTok: ByteDance, a Chinese-owned company that has been accused of allegedly selling user data. In court a former employee of ByteDance claimed that “the Chinese communist party accessed the data of TikTok users on a broad scale, and for political purposes.” “the former employee of ByteDance, Yintao Yu, alleged that the CCP spied on pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong in 2018 by using “backdoor” access to TikTok to identify and monitor the activists’ locations and communications”
Recently on March 13, 2024. The House of Representatives passed a bill that could be the reason TikTok was banned. According to “TIME”, “the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill to force TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to sell TikTok or else the app will be banned on American phones. The government will fine the two major mobile app stores and any cloud hosting companies to ensure Americans cannot access the app.”
TikTok spoke up about this by warning the platform users about the ban. “Congress is planning a total ban of TikTok,” in an official statement to its users, TikTok said: “This will damage millions of businesses, destroy the livelihoods of countless creators across the country, and deny artists an audience.”
Shou Zi Chew, the current CEO of TikTok, is expected to visit lawmakers on Capitol Hill this week to argue against the legislation. In a video shared on the social media platform, he said that the ban would put more than 300,000 American jobs at risk. Chew also encouraged people to speak out against the ban, and make their “voices heard.”
