The TikTok ban centers around the debate about freedom of speech rights in America and how these rights relate to foreign companies’ control of media. Despite the overwhelming support for the TikTok ban in Congress, the bill shouldn’t become law.
Over the past few years, TikTok has become one of the world’s most popular video-sharing platforms, with the social media app garnering over one billion active monthly users. As of January 2024, the U.S. boasted the most significant number of users, with 148 million active TikTokers. These users use TikTok to watch and post videos such as dances, skits, politics and world news for Gen Z.
Politicians such as Jeff Jackson, with 2.3 million followers, can reach this demographic and explain news and politics in a way they can understand. Tufts University estimated that “50% of young people, ages 18-29, voted in the 2020 election,” the largest number of young voters in a presidential campaign since Congress lowered the voting age.
You would think politicians would want TikTok to invigorate a young voter base, but surprisingly, they would vote to ban the social media platform. The TikTok law, if signed, will force ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, to sell the social media platform to an American corporation or ban it completely in the U.S. Congress sold the bill using the guise of fighting the Chinese Communist Party’s ability to gain control over American users’ data and fighting their ability to change the algorithm.
The reality is that even if TikTok is sold to an American company, that corporation will do the same thing ByteDance is under fire for. In 2018, Facebook received backlash for selling American users’ data without consent. NPR ran an article stating that “millions of Facebook users’ data” had been improperly shared with the Trump campaign.
Congress doesn’t care about American users’ privacy, but they do care about what information young voters gain access to. The Israel-Palestine conflict is a grim example of that, with social media companies such as Meta outright banning and censoring content that was pro-Palestine. Users found TikTok a safe platform to talk about and raise awareness of the human rights violations and genocide going on in Gaza. If an American corporation gains control of TikTok, that safe space will disappear.
Politicians approached the bill aggressively. According to The Conversation, political consultants have called the Democrats “politically insane” for supporting this bill. U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo even speculated that if this bill passes, the Democrats would “lose every voter under 35, forever.” While the statement may seem extreme, the sentiment is right. The new bill would show voters that Congress only cares about which companies own your private data and not about fundamental issues such as rising insurance prices, rising education costs, and inflation.
