On Aug. 2, 2024, TikTok was sued due to possible privacy violations of Americans. As it becomes more likely that the app will be banned in America unless sold by the owner ByteDance, many are conflicted over whether it would benefit users.
Lawmakers are worried that ByteDance might send American’s collected data on the app to the Chinese government. However, students like junior Roy Kane aren’t as worried about their privacy on the app.
“I don’t really think they take much of my data, but they definitely know what’s going on,” Kane said. “Like, if you show a location in your video, they can know your whereabouts.”
Some teens and influencers are against the ban and argue that if it were to happen, the ban would have more impacts than just preventing users from watching videos. Senior Stella Roller, a student who manages multiple TikTok accounts for CHS, believes that the potential ban of TikTok might make information harder to spread.
“I do think [TikTok] is a platform people use to make money as well as to promote their [products],” Roller said. “For instance, we use our school’s account to promote everything, so I think if something bad happened to it, we wouldn’t be able to get [as] much [information] out there as we already do.”
For many TikTok users and influencers, the app is how they make a living. While some would only lose a source of entertainment with the ban, this could mean a total loss of income for others.
“It would affect a lot of people because [for] some people that’s their job,” Kane said. “Like the clip farming, they make clip streams and post it, [so] they’re making their money off [the] app.”
While some believe TikTok comes with many positives, some students view the app as an academic detriment. While they should be completing assignments, these students find it difficult to focus on their work without checking their TikTok feed.
“Last semester, [my GPA] dropped from [a] 4.2 to [a] 3.6 because I was slacking on school,” Kane said. “I would go home and sit on my phone and watch TikTok.”
While TikTok can affect users academically, some feel the app can advance student life in other ways. Sophomore Allie Tuthill believes that the platform can greatly benefit students’ social lives.
“Sometimes you meet somebody online and you find out, ‘oh, they went to my school.’ I’ve had a couple of friends that I’ve met through [TikTok],” Tuthill said.
Despite the pros and cons of the app, the fate of TikTok in America is still undetermined. Some people even believe that a new social media platform could rise to popularity if it were to be banned.
“I do think we live in an economy and society where we have multiple replacements of everything,” Roller said. “So I think if that were to happen, something would replace it.”
