On January 18th, at 10:30 PM ET, TikTok was shut down temporarily. Many users were faced with the message, “A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the US”. However, 12 hours later, the app came back online and users received a message thanking Trump for extending the ban’s deadline. This ban originated on April 24th, 2024, with a bill stating that platform TikTok needed to be bought from aAmerican owned company or the app would be banned in the United States. Byte Dance, the company that owns TikTok, refused to sell the app and was forced to ban their app for a short period of time. This series of events still does not bring us to the motive behind banning the app. The American government states that the Chinese government is an foreign adversary, meaning the country poses national security threats. Since Byte Dance is based in China, TikTok has the potential to steal both user data and national security data. In my opinion, there has to be an ulterior motive behind this ban because I simply do not believe that it was for the safety of people or for the so called “better good”. I believe that the possible ulterior motives behind this ban were the control of information and influence and a political ploy that helps Trump’s reputation.
Debunking the “safety” excuse
One of the main claims that the government argues is that TikTok is selling our data to the Chinese government and other companies. However, if the government were really concerned about our safety, they would not allow our own social media companies like Facebook and Instagram to sell our data.
For instance, on my phone yesterday, I received a notification on Instagram asking for permission to track information on other apps for “advertising purposes”. For the government to preach that they are banning TikTok for our safety, and best interest is completely false. Everywhere on the internet, there are cookies that track your preferences and steal your data which is why we have certain browsers like Brave that block these trackers. Even apps like Google and Apple Maps track your location and send information to advertisers based on where you go. Therefore, neither you nor anyone should believe in the idea that the government is truly trying to preserve your privacy and safety, because privacy is a thing of the past.
Political Ploy
One of the ulterior motives behind this was a political ploy to make Trump appear as the “hero” regarding this ban. First, the message that users got when the app resurfaced was thanking Donald Trump for his actions. This message makes it seem like there was an ulterior motive to bolster Trump’s reputation. Therefore, it is likely that Trump made a deal with the TikTok CEO to only enact the ban for a few hours and then when the app returned, state that it was due to Trump. After all, Trump stated before that he wants to “save TikTok”, after most of the government voted in favor of the Tik Tok ban. Another weird occurrence was that the TikTok CEO was present at Trump’s inauguration, definitely hinting that something occurred behind the scenes.
The Control of Influence
Another possible motive was for the government to control the sphere of influence Americans get their information from. TikTok is a major source of information for Americans, including Americans. Since Tik Tok is one of Meta’s biggest competitors and is foreign based, it is plausible that Mark Zuckberg and other influential third party donors would push agendas on Congress to ban TikTok. When you think about it, the TikTok ban promotes Instagram reels because it is the 2nd alternative to the unlimited amount of videos to scroll on TikTok. Aside from that, TikTok’s algorithm offers all creators an open-discussion opportunity regarding issues that affect them. Certain issues like the war in Gaza, abortion, and the killing of the healthcare CEO were all very anti-establishment, and anti-government. Throughout the Gaza war, the app was very pro-Palestine, and was against funding Israel. Due to information surfacing that was very against the mainstream stance users could find on other apps, it offers a lot of different opinions that Americans are not used to hearing in mainstream news. Therefore, if the US government could ban TikTok, they would have full control over the narrative of news that is being produced within the US.
Conclusion
The brief TikTok ban was nothing but a way to censor American’s free speech and bolster Donald Trump’s reputation. Although the government states that TikTok is a national security threat, there is a lack of information to the public to back that up. In addition, if Congress was truly serious about stopping the selling of data and information, they would stop our own companies from selling users’ data. If Congress was opposed to China having influence in our society, they would also stop the ownership of our farmland, large portions of our entertainment industry, and our debt. Clearly, there are much bigger things to worry about in foreign influence than an app that brings people together through open discussion.
Source: “Tik Tok Makes App Unavailable US Users Ahead of Ban”, nbcnews.com
