Tiktok: Will it Shut Down?

Update 1/25: Since the publication of the article this bill has advanced and will be enforced in the United States as of January 19th, 2025.

Do keep in mind that this bill is not specific to TikTok, and TikTok is merely a precedent for any other apps the Protecting Americans from Foreign Controlled Applications Act would like "banned."

This bill being approved merely means that other apps can be removed from the App Store if following the same criteria as TikTok. To follow updated on bills live, go to http://House.gov or http://congress.gov

Currently the social media platform “TikTok” is facing a bill that could force their parent company “ByteDance” to divest or put Tiktok to rest from U.S. app stores. What do we know as of now?

What is Tiktok?

In July 2014, Alex Zhu launched a revolutionary app designed for “lip-synching” to songs with dance trends. Using 15-30 second clips of popular songs, the demographic of majority young teens and tweens would dance or act along with the song like a music video.

With a vertical scrolling “for you page,” similar to just the home feature on Facebook or Instagram the user could watch other creator’s content. Liking and commenting were also options, but there was never a dislike button. 

Musical.ly hit #1 in the U.S. App Store within just one year. So, with such a big app, what happened to it? In 2018 it became Tiktok seemingly overnight. 

Around this time the app had begun to shift from purely song-based content to more comedy and skit videos where creators use their own audio. This led not only to a shift in ownership, but a full cultural shift as well. 

The app started many trends and style fads from late 2018 through early 2020, but remained a slightly addictive social media for mainly tweens.

To many the app was considered childish and silly to own still, even after its near 180 from lip-synching. But, when Covid swept the country and everyone was stuck indoors, solace was found for the majority of teens on the social media platform. 

Even now in the current post-quarantine era, many young adults spend between 3-6 hours a day on Tiktok.

Why Ban it?

The conflict can be boiled down to National security isles and privacy concerns.

Even though Alex Zhu is Singaporean and has no affiliation with China other than the placement of his company, the House of Representatives considers “ByteDance” (The company that owns Tiktok) to be a security concern related to the “Chinese Communist Party” propaganda presented by the company, but this was not the original concern. 

After going back and forth since 2020 around the presidential election, it started with US citizen information protection. After the company agreed to take preventative measures such as filtering through “Oracle,” which is physically in Texas, so the action was referred to as the “Texas Project.” But this was not enough for lawmakers.

The Biden administration was off and on the side of pushing the bill in 2023, conflicted with losing their demographic of young voters. 

This nearly came to fruition when in the May of the same year Montana became the first state to pass a total ban on the app. Many other republican states attempted to follow suit, but a federal judge blocked the legislation six months later.

Lawmakers simply have not been able to display a cohesive case as to why they require TikTok and apps under similar ownership to be divested or banned, leading to this now four year long legal battle.

The national security concerns have been touched on and handled, so unless there is more evidence that is yet to be divulged to media sources and the general public, many will continue feeling that the current procedure is overreactive.

In Defense of the Bill

While it may seem extreme, this is a common step that the U.S. government takes with foreign owned apps that show social prominence in our country.

An example of this is the LGBT dating app Grindr that was originally owned by an Israeli-American Joel Simkhai, but after ten years was gradually under the ownership of Kunlun Tech, a Chinese conglomerate. 

By January of 2018 the new facilitators of the app made many changes both users and employees did not agree with, simply in an effort to make the app look attractive to possible investors. 

Kunlun’s team proceeded to focus on a failed magazine INTO, ad campaign “Kindr,” and general usability of the platform to the point that the community matchmaking and any sense of data safety were neglected.

Their former head of security stated that they could have implemented a long-term encryption protocol to keep users' data hidden, but did not do so.

CFIUS gave the same order to Kunlun Tech in 2019 that ByteDance is receiving now. The order to divest was controversial mainly due to the fact that CFIUS does not make their proof for why a ruling of foreign threat is made public. This led to speculation similar to that happening now, with it easy to believe it's simply due to the US-China trade conflict, as it is likely. 

Though the most understandable concern is that an HIV filter was added to the matchmaking app. This would allow users to not see others positive with the disease, but also allow anyone to know that a user is HIV positive due to their faulty data security system.

This could be invasive and ruin a user if this information was leaked. 

After being divested to San Vicente Acquisition LLC in 2020, but it was quickly a scandal as they had both close social and financial ties. The group was started by close friends of the CEO at the time attempting to raise funds to buy the app, and were eventually able to after starting Vicente.  

Due to the less than trustworthy dealings with this similar preceding of a China-stationed company, it is more than reasonable for those who made the bill to be cautious with ByteDance.

While we do not know the exact way user data is being protected, or if there is possibly a bypass of Oracle, it is possible they have detected something similar to the less than safe protocol that Grindr utilized while owned by Kunlun Tech.

Where Are We in the Process?

The bill has undoubtedly passed the House by vote of 352-65, and is now entering the senate, where what the decision will be is much less clear. 

The senate functions by a roll call system in which when the senator’s name is called, they give an affirmative vote. While this sounds quick and easy, a bill can typically be discussed on the Senate floor for a week or more.

Each member has their own policies to stick to and stipulations to add. And with such a tricky case even Senator Kevin Cramer has been quoted saying this could be a matter of months.  

And if the senate and house pass different versions of the bill, a conference committee consisting of members from each will be formed. Reaching a compromise could take even longer.

Negotiation leads to unpredictability, so all you can do is mentally prepare for both outcomes.

If it Passes?

If the “Protecting Americans Against Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications” act is made law, while being backed by the senate “RESTRICT” act, it will leave a new interpretation to the 1st amendment that could be seen as a direct violation. 

Even with this in mind, President Joe Biden is in full support of both acts, in spite of the help the app had in building the young voting demographic that won him his position four years ago.

If the application is banned, it's not far off to infer that Biden will lack all of said support going into his reelection this year. 

Most importantly, if you don’t have the app and are planning to get it, do it while you still can. *

Updated 1/25: This decision will affect current users and may render the application entirely unusable and loose many of its user-friendly qualities. Updates are alledgedly frequent, and due to the fact they will not be possible to implement, it will cause any and all bugs to go unfixed.

The best case scenario if this becomes law is that within the six months allotted, ByteDance will divest ownership and Tiktok will remain in the app store.

The only issue with this is finding a worthy buyer, which other than the former U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin who plans to create an investor group, none have stepped up. 

If the app manages to sell to an American-based company, which would most likely be Meta, the app will be much different. But personally, different is better than gone.  

If it Dies?

If the bill dies there won’t be any major effects on the application, but the effect this will have on the presidential election this November is near irreversible.

Biden was chosen by young voters due to being the less conservative choice in the 2020 election, but with being in full support of a restricting act like this many of his typical voting demographic have shifted their view of him. 

In the same way, former president and current presidential candidate Donald J. Trump’s sudden support of the bill after making his own attempt to get the app shut down while in office can be taken by audiences as insincere.

Trump is typically very direct as seen in both his politics and media, so changing his policy so suddenly can be reasonably taken as nothing more than an attempt to gain support from the same young voters that pushed for his defeat last election.

The public’s views of both candidates this fall have changed if they care about the state of Tiktok. 

So?

So, there isn't truly an answer as to what will happen to the app yet.

The situation involves the U.S. government’s fears regarding China holding social influence in our country and the 2024 presidential candidates trying their best to garner voter support in these short few months until the polls go up again.

If you disagree, feel free to comment below on this article what you feel about the bill. 

-Kaylee Tate, EIC