By Norah Jewett ‘25
January 18, 2025. A day that might as well live in infamy. Only hours before midnight, the world suddenly seemed to stop. Why? Because in the United States, the app that almost 170 million American citizens have downloaded onto their phones, finally went dark. This, is of course, referring to the controversial TikTok ban that apparently shook America to its core just mere weeks ago.
The idea of a TikTok ban had been on the table of the federal government for some time. Way back in 2020, sitting President Donald Trump proposed the idea of a national TikTok ban, stating that the Chinese-owned app was a security threat to the United States. Both sides expressed their opinions loudly. Many were concerned over the data being collected through the app’s millions of American users, while others believed that a ban would infringe on America’s freedom of expression, and banning the app without addressing similar issues on other platforms wouldn’t solve data privacy problems. Both valid concerns.
According to Axios, a bill passed in Congress and signed by former President Biden last year “required ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, to either sell the app to a U.S. company or shut down operations by Jan. 19.” ByteDance refused as the deadline to make the decision crept closer. Then, several hours before the clocks struck twelve on January 19th, the app went dark in the United States.
People who originally thought this discussion to be “all bark and no bite” woke up to find the app locked. When attempting to open the app, they were met with a rather ominous message:
“Sorry, TikTok isn’t available right now. A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S. Unfortunately, that means you can’t use TikTok for now. We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office. Please stay tuned!”
Then, after his inauguration on January 20th, President Trump passed an executive order repealing the ban and giving ByteDance an extra 75 days to comply. The app was only dark for 12 hours.
After the ban was lifted, users logging back on were met with this message:
“Welcome back! Thanks for your patience and support. As a result of President Trump’s efforts, TikTok is back in the U.S.!”
Trump, a fierce, long-standing advocate for a TikTok ban, who attempted to ban it back in his first term, suddenly was removing the ban he’s been pushing for for years. And the app was congratulating him for it.
You can believe what you want about Trump or the morality of banning apps, but this sudden move of Trump playing the “hero” of this situation even after years of balling for the other team, coupled with the app’s newfound support for him…doesn’t add up, to say the least. Social media is already chalked full of propaganda for all sides of all debates, so having such an influential platform now backing such an extremist figure such as Trump doesn’t bode well for the content that will be circulating throughout the platform.
Other than the argument of data privacy supporting the TikTok ban, many voice their support for the ban from a mental health standpoint. Even kids at Beverly High reported that a TikTok ban could probably do them some good, saying that it was “about time [they’d] break it off with the highly addictive app.”
So not everyone is inherently against the idea of banning TikTok in order to protect data and mental well-being. People are worried about the lack of evidence being presented to support such a ban. According to NRP, supporters of the ban failed to offer “direct evidence of the Chinese government ever attempting to obtain data from the company, nor any proof that authorities there have ever influenced content on the platform used by 170 million Americans.” Granted, foul proof evidence of Chinese espionage can be difficult to obtain and even harder to present to the public, most of the decision was made due to speculation. It frustrated Americans to see the app being banned due to a reason that was backed up with no evidence, regardless of how well-intentioned the action was.
Moreover, this issue isn’t carried over into any other app. If this is such a problem, the issue is not halted by stopping just one non-American owned app. If the concern is the Chinese government gathering American data, they also have several other apps (though maybe not as influential or widely used as TikTok) still available to U.S. citizens, including RedNote. Similar to TikTok, this app gained “more than three million U.S. users” as a result of the TikTok ban. If the government is to stop American citizens’ data from being stolen, they will not be successful in their goal when so many other apps exist.
Now, whether you believe this ban is beneficial for people’s mental health or data safety or not, this ban stretches far outside of the problem of “oh I can’t watch my funny videos anymore.” You cannot deny that this ban is still censorship. Prohibiting people from accessing media is the definition of censorship. Even if some reasoning for this ban stems from concerns over national security, it still presents government control over the information Americans are consuming.
Censorship has always been an effective (abid harmful) way of preventing true expression of thought throughout history. Empires have always censored the language and books of ethnic people they believe are below them, a common example being the censorship of the languages and books of the people in the Baltic States, Ukraine, and other nations under the Russian Empire and later the Soviet Union’s control. Other policial examples include media censorship in Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy leading up to and during the Second World War.
While America is not at the point of total government censorship of media that we’ve observed in history, the implications of the government being able to completely ban sources of information and expression with little backing evidence, is concerning, to say the least. Heck, we see outrageous propaganda on social media as is, and none of our current platforms are directly under the control and influence of the government.
One of America’s leading ideals is freedom of expression. If early signs of censorship aren’t taken seriously, there may be a future out there where the suppression of free thought even outside of social media might become a reality.
Image credit: Newsweek
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