The beginning of the New Year started with a ban of a popular social media platform: TikTok. Midnight on January 19th, TikTok was banned for approximately 12 hours in the United States. 

The reasoning behind the ban was tied to the national security concerns from lawmakers. More specifically, they were apprehensive that TikTok’s owner, ByteDance, would share user data with the Chinese government. After the 12 hour span, President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order delaying the TikTok ban for 75 days. To avoid a permanent ban, the owner of TikTok must sell or partially sell its U.S. operations to an American company. After the Executive Order was signed, users were unable to redownload the app. At Panther Creek, 28.6% of students that were polled deleted TikTok during the ban period and reaffirmed these claims.

Prior to the ban, users across the site prepared in different ways. Popular content creators on the app began to promote their accounts on other sites such as Instagram and Youtube. Those who relied on the app for more entertainment purposes rather than creating content, still used TikTok a significant amount. A reported 57.1% of students used the app multiple times a day. Junior Neo Patel explained, “I went through my favorites and saved almost everything.” in preparation.

However, the app was only gone for less than half a day. This left students wondering what the future regarding the app would look like. Junior Grace Edmunson elaborated, “I felt like it was one of those things where they were going to take Smart Lunch away but never did, like a scare tactic. It doesn’t feel like it’s going to do anything. Either take it away or don’t, stop just talking about it.” 

With the ban only being postponed, only time will tell the future endeavors. Will the app be permanently banned? If not, are there any actual repercussions that will follow?