Over the past 20 years, social media has taken the world by storm. Different apps such as Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat have allowed for almost instantaneous communication to the world that surrounds us and that from afar. On Dec. 18, 2018, a new social media platform emerged: TikTok. Since then, it has reached users worldwide, and many have made their livelihood from creating content on the app. However, these past few weeks have seen the social media platform thrust into the spotlight over the Supreme Court’s decision to ban it for “security purposes” due to it being owned by the Chinese company ByteDance (Chinese-owned shopping apps , and don’t seem to be an issue).
Over 170 million Americans were affected by the ban of the social media platform on the of Jan. 19. The decision came after the Supreme Court to “prevent the Chinese government from weaponizing TikTok to undermine America’s national security.” The ban lasted for less than a day before the app went back online due to negotiations beginning to take place between Donald J. Trump, then president-elect, and the company’s CEO. On Monday, Jan. 20, the president signed an executive order temporarily suspending the ban (an interesting choice considering he it back in 2020) in the hopes that ByteDance would sell a good portion of its shares to an American company. As of right now, the app is not available for download in the Google or Apple app stores, and we don’t know if or when it will return.
When Americans logged onto the app the evening of the 19th they saw a post that : “Sorry, TikTok isn’t available right now. A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S. Unfortunately, that means you can’t use TikTok for now. We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office. Please stay tuned.”
Let’s unpack this for a moment, shall we? For years Trump has held a vendetta against China. In , he levied tariffs on Chinese goods which began a trade war that lasted throughout most of his first term. 2020 found the Trump-China relationship even more strained as he took the liberty of blaming the country for the COVID-19 pandemic, using racist rhetoric and worsening the anti-Chinese sentiment previously established. This begs the question of why he’s advocating for a Chinese-owned app now when his past has made clear his dislike for the Eastern country. The answer is quite simple for those who care to listen: It’s a political power move that benefits his administration in the long-term. I would also like to note that the notice referred to Trump as “president” the day before he was actually inaugurated. At the time of the ban, he was still president-elect. Therefore, it could be argued that the notice itself was a power play seeing as how an individual not yet in office was given its title.
From this point forward, those who are on TikTok are only able to be so thanks to President Trump, a man who—as of Jan. 20 and 21—has repealed the Equal Opportunity Act, stated that governmental policy will now only recognize two genders: male and female, left the World Health Organization, pardoned 1,500 capitol rioters, suspended the U.S. Refugee Admission Program and repealed birthright citizenship. If history has shown anything, it's that we’re headed down a dark and dangerous path and that even freedom of speech—although protected under the Constitution—may not be safe.
The Student Movement is the official student newspaper of 老司机传媒. Opinions expressed in the Student Movement are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, 老司机传媒 or the Seventh-day Adventist church.