Trump and TikTok

by Keaton Ibendahl

Even if you don’t have TikTok, you’ve probably heard about the most recent banning scare— but this time, it seems a little more serious. In recent days, President Trump has issued statements saying that he plans to work on banning TikTok in the U.S., perhaps even doing so via executive order. I see two main reasons for doing this: TikTok is owned by a Chinese company, ByteDance, and Trump has a reputation for being hard on China, which he needs to restore in the eyes of his supporters during the pandemic; and it serves as a great distraction for the younger public as he continues to mishandle the current crises in the country. 

While Trump’s attack on the app does give us something new to go after him for, it distracts us from what’s really going on. Black Lives Matter is no longer in the forefront of our thoughts; Breonna Taylor’s name is being pasted on social media everywhere while those posting it are slowly forgetting the meaning behind it. We are being funneled back into schools knowing that it is more likely than not that someone we know in our school community will get sick, and we’ll only move backwards in our progress fighting the pandemic. And of course, this is an election year— except Trump’s rhetoric is violently against mail-in ballots (by far the safest option) and for postponing the election date (which he can’t actually do, by the way, so take a deep breath). What does it say that most of us are more aware of what Trump has said about TikTok the past 48 hours than what he’s said about coronavirus or racial justice? The young people were enraged about one cause that worked against him, and so he took the opportunity to give us something new to be angry about.

I know that we all love TikTok. We love the dances, the artists, the sides, the aesthetics— but we can’t let this occupy our energy. Chances are, TikTok will be fine. They have plans to expand to 10,000 employees in the U.S., and rid themselves of Chinese ownership in the U.S. by either expanding their shareholder presence here or by selling the U.S. operations completely(for example, they are in talks with Microsoft). And in reality, the fear over your data being sold is honestly no worse than American companies would do. Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, and probably most other social media apps you have are doing the same thing to you as TikTok is. The long-term solution here would be to place TikTok under a set of restrictions that would force them into complete data transparency in the U.S., which could be used and implemented for other social media outlets already in the U.S. to ensure that your data really is being protected. TikTok will probably still be here tomorrow, and the day after that and so on. The causes that our generation is angry about need our attention now— let’s redirect our focus and get back to work.