I’m sure you’ve heard of how the American Government is trying to ban Tiktok. If you live under a rock and don’t know what TikTok is, a social media app dedicated to short-form videos created for and consumed by users. Most Americans were confused when they first heard about TikTok potentially being banned in America. Other people were unfazed and doubtful that the Government can ban hundreds of millions of people from using an app. They are unfazed because the TikTok ban doesn’t have a lot of support from regular American citizens.

At first it seemed like the government was being dramatic and overreacting when they first said they were going to ban TikTok. I thought it was a pretty stupid thing for the Government to try to ban TikTok when there are other problems going on in the world, but when you do a little bit of research about what China is up to you might change your mind about how you feel about TikTok.

The main reason for trying to ban TikTok is the Government’s concern that China is using TikTok to spy on American citizens and gather their important data. Most Americans don’t agree with the Government’s reasoning. Citizens are saying all social media apps like Instagram and Facebook collect users data so why all of a sudden does the government wanna talk about TikTok potentially stealing data. TikTok supporters then started pointing fingers at Facebook and how Facebook is known for stealing users’ data.

To most people there is no reason for TikTok to be banned. But if we look in the perspective of how the Government views TikTok there might actually be some concern. TikTok is owned by a Chinese company, and America and China have a lot of tension between them. TikTok could be collecting data to use that to their advantage against the United States. Researchers don’t know what TikTok collects data for or what they do with that data, but it’s likely it’s not for anything good.

The Government has already taken steps toward banning TikTok. They already have TikTok banned in the state of Montana. Even though only about 17 people live in Montana, other states are going along with the TikTok ban in their states, Indiana being one of them.

Nobody knows for sure if TikTok will fully get banned across the whole United States or if it violates the rights of American citizens.  It will be unfortunate for people like me who use TikTok to watch funny videos in their free time, and people who do business through TikTok. There likely will be an alternative app similar to TikTok or people could just resort to watching Instagram reels or YouTube Shorts to fulfill their entertainment needs.