To all teens choreographing new dances or making funny memes, TikTok might be getting banned.
This past week, the House of Representatives voted to ban TikTok. This bill passed the House with 352 “yay” votes and 65 “nay” votes. It is now going to the Senate where the outcome is unknown.
Ideally, the U.S. wants the Chinese owners of TikTok to hand over the personal information of 170 million Americans who use the app. If ordered by the Chinese authorities, ByteDance, the owner, would have to give it up.
If ByteDance does not comply within 165 days, TikTok will be banned from the app store in the United States.
Concerns have risen from TikTok users and staff who are not happy with the situation.
TikTok influencer Kenny made sure to share her concerns.
¨There’s over 100,000 influencers that make a living on TikTok, not to include the 5 million plus businesses relying on TikTok for expansion, songwriters, athletes, people who need the exposure from this app,” Kenny said.
TikTok is owned by ByteDance, but Facebook, which is now considered Meta, owns 94 different companies, including Instagram. Companies like Instagram, Google, Yahoo, Verizon, AT&T, have all been fined for violating data privacy regulations.
Freshman Nora Salla went famous on TikTok for making a TikTok with her friends recording a dance trend before an eighth grade dance. She now still has a following of 65.7k followers.
¨ I feel like TikTok getting banned could definitely be a turn for the better,” Salla said. “More people will interact with each other. On platforms like TikTok, there are lots of different types of interactions, some of them being toxic towards others. If TikTok gets banned, those toxic interactions can be reduced.”
According to Exploding Topics, the average time spent on TikTok in just a month is 13 hours and 18 minutes. This is a high consumption and is severely higher than other apps.
Junior TikTok user Lindsey Sweitzer has a different opinion on TikTok being banned.
¨I think it shouldn’t be banned because… Tiktok is a helpful resource that gives you life hacks and [can] help you with math problems,¨ Sweitzer said.
Everyone believes something different when thinking of the app TikTok. Since this is such an up-in-the-air situation, the decision will be made either 165 days to 6 months from now.
