Social media has ushered in a decade of innovation, widespread social and political and controversy, and TikTok is the most polarizing platform to come so far.
TikTok’s parent company ByteDance launched the app in the United States in 2018. The app is a globalized version of its Chinese predecessor Douyin, which was launched in 2016 and is still used in China today.
The first attempt to ban the app was by Donald Trump in August 2020. The ban focused on if the company failed to be bought out an American-owned entity. He released two executive orders to ban the app, but they were ultimately blocked by a federal judge.
Florida was the first state to ban TikTok from government devices and various states have been following suit, including Tennessee and the federal government.
TikTok has faced many criticisms of its addictive quality, poor content moderation, misinformation and data privacy concerns. These are not exclusive to the platform and are major problems with most social media companies.
TikTok is under scrutiny because lawmakers fear that the Chinese government can access and steal the data of American users. This fear culminated in the recent Senate hearings with TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew.
Unfortunately, these hearings did little to curb public sentiment about TikTok, as many of the questions asked lacked apparent understanding or the app or digital platforms in general.
The RESTRICT Act, which aims to ban TikTok nationally, was blocked by Republican senator Rand Paul, citing possible First Amendment violations.
Democratic representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has also spoken out against the dangerous precedent this ban would set.
Most experts have pointed out the need for national data privacy legislation like the European General Data Protection Regulation or the California Consumer Privacy Act.
These laws would create a legal obligation to disclose the end use and collection of user data. However, these laws would apply to all platforms, and many platforms will likely lobby against this.
TikTok is only a symptom of the social media problem, but politicians have shown no sign of pushing for the universal changes the general public and experts are calling for.
