A very popular social media app is one step closer to getting banned in the United States. The House of Representatives recently passed a bill that could ban TikTok in America unless it is sold within the next six months.
Since the House has passed the bill to become a law, next the Senate must clear it and then the president will need to sign it.
TikTok is an app where you post videos. Most videos consist of people dancing, lip syncing to popular songs, vlogging, talking and more.
TikTok is a Chinese owned app, owned by the company ByteDance. This company is based in Beijing. In Hindustan Times it states, “The basic reason why the move was made is because lawmakers are afraid ByteDance could be forced by the Chinese government to hand over data of millions of US users.”
TikTok is currently banned in India. They banned the app in 2020 after a violent clash on the India-Chinese border causing 20 Indian soldiers to die. Soon after, the government in New Delhi banned TikTok and many other Chinese owned apps.
Sophomore English teacher Heather Sramek says she has TikTok, but rarely uses it. She shared about how the TikTok ban would affect her.
“Doesn’t impact me that much,” Sramek said. “I have TikTok, but mostly just for when my kids send me something to watch. So I think it’s OK to ban it if the concerns are actually legitimate.”
Sramek explains the concerns America is having with China and this app.
“If China or whomever is stealing information, I think that’s a very vitale thing to be concerned about,” Sramek said. “I think a lot of the TikTok users are people that probably won’t pay a lot of attention to things being tracked and those kind of things.”
Sramek says TikTok does have an impact in the classroom, but it has its good qualities and it’s not necessarily TikTok that’s the problem, but phones just in general.
“I think TikTok does encourage such a level of creativity that they can turn around and be used in the classroom,” Sramek said. “But at the same time, I’ve even banned phones recently, and just banning the phone more so than banning TikTok has improved my classes.” Green Tech and horticulture teacher Mathew Milhlom said he regularly uses TikTok and believes it won’t actually be banned.
“I use TikTok all the time,” Milholm said. “I don’t think this is actually going to eliminate TikTok. Either, we’re going to sell it because I believe that the stipulation is that if we sell to an American company then it won’t be banned. I also think that if TikTok gets banned, then we’ll have a new TikTok, meaning there will be a similar app with a different name.”
Banning TikTok will be a change in America’s society with having almost one billion active users and being the fourth largest social media platform.
