What Happened To The Tiktok Ban?
By: Nitzaliah Festinger
Just this month, Tiktok has officially gotten rid of its potential ban in America. Which people think is a really big deal considering how the U.S. tried to ban it – and at one point actually did – for years now. So how’d they do it?
A year ago this month, Tiktok was banned and shut down in the U.S. due to national security concerns. As many of us should remember, the ban only lasted about 14 hours. This was because Trump signed an executive order to delay the ban for 75 days. During the past year, Trump continued to sign more of these orders, repeatedly pushing the deadline, until now.
Tiktok has settled on a deal with the U.S. to compromise the conflict surrounding the national security concerns. The root of these concerns stems from not Tiktok itself, but rather its parent company, ByteDance. ByteDance formerly owned all of Tiktok globally. They launched the app after buying Musically in 2017, and rebranding it as what we now know as Tiktok. Supposedly, this posed a threat because they had all access to user data and could have shared information with the Chinese communist government.
The new deal states that the maximum percentage of Tiktok that ByteDance is allowed own is 19.9%, which is the amount they currently own. This allows America to take over the rest. The algorithm is now fully operating using American data. This should probably lead to changes in the algorithm and what shows up on people’s feeds. But more importantly, it means the U.S. also has all access to user data which they were worried about being shared with the Chinese communist party. The things people could post on social media that could pose a national security threat, are unknown, but apparently it’s not an issue anymore.
Believe it or not, Tiktok has become extremely relevant to the U.S. economy, and a ban could’ve actually caused issues for all Americans. Not only would a U.S. Tiktok ban cause over 200,000 people to lose their jobs, harm small businesses, and harm the advertisement industry, but it would also significantly decrease tax revenue. In 2023, Tiktok generated $5.3 billion from marketing and advertisement use of the app. If the U.S. lost this yearly income, we could see a decrease in funding of public services such as schools and financial aid programs. The combination of decreased government funding with the loss of a job, would significantly harm most content creators, as well as other Americans who benefit from government funds.
All in all, while this issue may not seem like a very big deal, it is important and prominent to our country, and it’s a good thing our government has finally dealt with it.
Sources:
https://www.google.com/search?q=whats+happening+with+tiktok&rlz=1CATAVM_enUS1176&oq=whats+happening+with+tiktok&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIRCAEQABgKGAsYgwEYsQMYgAQyEQgCEAAYChgLGIMBGLEDGIAEMgsIAxAAGAoYCxiABDILCAQQABgKGAsYgAQyEQgFEAAYChgLGIMBGLEDGIAEMgYIBhBFGEAyBggHEEUYQNIBCDY4NDZqMGo3qAIAsAIA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&safe=active&ssui=on
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efforts_to_ban_TikTok_in_the_United_States#:~:text=In%202020%2C%20President%20Donald%20Trump,to%20be%20made%20before%20then.
https://broadbandbreakfast.com/what-to-know-about-the-deal-to-keep-tiktok-from-being-banned-in-the-u-s/#:~:text=After%20wide%20bipartisan%20majorities%20in,for%20the%20research%20firm%20eMarketer.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3edd1l328lo
https://builtin.com/articles/us-tiktok-ban