TikTok faces a potential deadline in the United States as lawmakers continue to try to implement a nationwide ban on the app. With over 1.5 billion users, around 170 million of those users being from the U.S., the app is set to be banned on January 19th due to possible national security risks.
The popular short-video app has faced national security concerns since 2019. TikTok has stated multiple times that they store their U.S. data on servers only in the United States and Singapore, but several concerns from our government have been raised about the Chinese government having access to its user’s personal data.
“Honestly, I got rid of TikTok a few weeks ago, I didn’t use it anymore and I was worried about what everyone was saying,” sophomore Caroline Books said.
TikTok is run by a Chinese company called ByteDance and the U.S. government and others are concerned that the Chinese government could force this company to give certain data to them under Chinese laws.
“I hope TikTok doesn’t get banned, it’s a great way to communicate with my friends and I love sending them videos. If TikTok is taking my data it has been this entire time, I don’t know why it’s becoming a big deal now,” sophomore Penelope Dickinson said.
This data can include many users’ personal information such as location, browsing habits, and device information. The U.S. government is concerned that this information could be used by the Chinese government for espionage, surveillance, etc.
“The TikTok ban is going to affect my friends because they’re always on it, but I don’t think it will affect me that much. It might even be good for me so I don’t redownload it because I was always getting distracted when I was scrolling,” Book said.
Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers have concerns about continuing to allow TikTok, with some lawmakers even suggesting that a complete ban is the only way to solve it. Even with these concerns, President-elect Donald J. Trump said last year in July that he would not allow TikTok to be banned.
“President Trump on Thursday invoked his emergency economic powers to impose broad sanctions against TikTok, a move that steps up pressure on the Chinese-owned app to sell its U.S. assets to an American company,” npr.org said in their recent story.
Both political parties have stated they view TikTok as a potential national security threat, so the banning of TikTok is slowly becoming a real possibility.
“It’s clear that more time is needed to find an American buyer and not disrupt the lives and livelihoods of millions of Americans, of so many influencers who have built up a good network of followers,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said in a recent article.
With the threat of TikTok being banned, many users have started to look towards other apps that can replace their time on TikTok. Some have looked at the app, RedNote. RedNote is a short-film video platform that is an alternative to TikTok in China. There it is known as Xiaohongshu, which translated means “little red book”. It is an e-commerce app, where shopping and the ability to leave reviews on products are also available.
“I think RedNote is a lot worse than TikTok. With my research, I have found that it has no offices in the U.S. and is massively censored. I’ve even heard of some people saying it will post your IP address publicly,” senior Erich Bohn said.
Many TikTok users have started to download the RedNote app, with the app gaining almost 200 million users in the last month (according to pcmag.com). This article also states that the app can also be sometimes known as “the Instagram of China” but that it also has similar content that you would find while scrolling through TikTok.
“Instagram is stealing my data in the exact same way TikTok is. We can all pretend that there’s going to be a new app that rides in as a knight in shining armor and replaces TikTok, but I think we all know that it’s just going to be Reels,” TikTok creator MikeGottschalk said in a recent TikTok video featured in a CNN article.
Those who have joined the RedNote app say that after maneuvering through the app’s language barrier, you can change the language to English and it becomes more user-friendly and has similar content that they like on TikTok.
“I would say that keeping TikTok would be more beneficial than all these users transforming to another app, especially if it’s like RedNote because it is not any better than TikTok, if anything it’s worse,” Bohn said.
Other users have gone to other apps such as Lemon8. Lemon8 is similar to TikTok as it is essentially a mix between Instagram and Pinterest, with photos and videos as well as sharing abilities. What some users may not realize is that Lemon8 is also run by ByteDance, which raises controversy for users on whether or not apps like Lemon8 will still be accessible if TikTok is banned. Other apps that are run by ByteDance include CapCut (a popular editing app), as well as TikTok Music.
“I don’t know what app I am going to start using if TikTok gets banned. Probably Instagram, but I just want to keep using TikTok,” Dickinson said.
In April 2024, US Congress passed a bill, which was signed into law by President Biden. This gave ByteDance nine months to sell to a US-approved buyer. This date is now coming up this Sunday, January 19th. Although recently there have been TikTok videos surfacing that the ban is now getting postponed for 270 days no one knows for sure.
“I’m not sure what information TikTok has access to. I’m just going to wait and see what the Supreme Court says,” Book said.
Currently, the most recent news to come out has been several Democratic senators including Cory Booker and Chris Van Hollen saying that without action from President Biden TikTok is most likely getting banned on Sunday. They also wrote to Biden saying, “Your administration represents the last chance to avoid a TikTok shutdown on Sunday.”
“I hope we still have access to TikTok but there’s nothing we can do but cross our fingers and just wait and see what happens on Sunday,” Dickinson said.
