On Jan. 18, 2025, one day prior to the day it was officially supposed to be banned, TikTok shut down for a total of 14 hours. Many people panicked, floundered and went on other social media sites to post pictures of the message announcing TikTok’s ban:
“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!”
Technically, the ban on TikTok was not to go into effect until the following day, Jan. 19, at 12:01 a.m. E.T., which suggests that the app’s premature shutdown was not at the hands of the government, but by TikTok’s own volition. These circumstances have been regarded by some as a sort of publicity stunt, set to create a savior-like image out of Trump in the eyes of TikTok users.
Upon being sworn into office, President Trump extended TikTok’s sell-by date by 75 days– which gave the company until April 5 to sell TikTok to an American-owned corporation. Since the self-banning stunt, TikTok seems to be operating business as usual. That being said, many users have suspicions that the platform’s algorithm has been changed to censor certain political videos.
Conspiracies about the change in algorithm stem primarily from reposts on TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew’s reposts on his own TikTok account, which praised President Trump and his administration. This seemingly unlikely friendship between Trump and Chew was made more clear after the CEO was one of many CEOs from the tech industry to attend Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, 2025.
The idea of TikTok being banned is not unheard of; during 2017, the government announced its intention to ban the Chinese-owned app, due to the risk of Chinese espionage. TikTok is considered a national security threat because the Chinese government could pressure Byte Dance– their Chinese owned parent company– into handing over the data of American TikTok users and putting out propaganda through the app’s algorithm. As of Dec. 16, 2024, all but 12 states and DC have banned TikTok on government devices.
Some students, such as Kaylen Elwood ‘27 believe there might be an ulterior motive.
“I feel like they’re trying to hold back our free speech, not gonna lie, because they can’t control it,” Kaylen said. “This is the one app where they can. They don’t know really anything about it. They just know that everyone has opinions, and they’re putting it on TikTok.”
TikTok collects no more data than Google or Facebook as far as we know, but most users don’t know the extent of personal information these platforms have access to. According to TikTok’s Privacy Policy, the app has permission to collect a user’s age, email address, phone number, search and browsing history and information about the contents of the photos and videos that you post. TikTok also has the ability to collect your contact list and have your exact location, but those features can be turned off—if you can manage to figure out the settings.
TikTok’s data collection is no big deal to students such as Charlie Freer ‘27.
“If it’s anything [data] outside of what TikTok actually needs, I don’t think it should be taking that,” Charlie said. “But if it’s like, I don’t know my location to, like, use a filter that shows my location on the video, I’m fine with that.”
Despite its relatively conservative data collection policy, lawmakers are concerned that the Chinese government will use TikTok as a means to get ahold of American data. This concern has a valid base, since the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) made a statement on their website:
“The Chinese Communist Party’s national security laws require all Chinese firms to share any requested data with the CCP, including biotechnology companies that collect, test, and store American genomic data.”
Companies that refuse to share data with the CCP face the risk of being put on an “unreliable entity list,” which would limit their abilities to do business in China and restrict what the company shares with the public. Dean Stephanie Stephens, the Upper School academic dean, civil liberties teacher and former army lawyer, believes that the risk of China collecting data is enough to cause concern for the United States’ national security.
“I don’t think the issue is really the sharing of the content, as much as it is… if the content provider is owned by someone who may not protect our content,” Dean Stephens said.
According to Dean Stephens, the argument people are making in favor of TikTok is that banning the app would be an infringement on the first amendment right to freedom of speech.
“[This argument has] been going on since well before the Civil War, and it is basically the argument that the speech might harm Americans, therefore the government should be able to suppress it, right?” Dean Stephens said.
That being said, freedom of expression is the first thing established in our Bill of Rights, and in that case, banning TikTok– which has been a platform used by both private individuals and news outlets– could be considered by some a restriction on free speech.
“In the United States, it’s enshrined in our Constitution,” Dean Stephens said. “It’s in the very first amendment, and so if we restrict speech or press, then we are undermining our own values.”
Teenagers value the freedom to speak and express themselves. Tiktok’s removal means that teenagers all across the nation would be deprived of entertainment, knowledge and connections of their choice.
“I’m kind of upset,” Kaylen said. “It helps me be able to be creative and also find little things that I like that a lot of people don’t like, but people on Tik Tok like it, so it makes me feel like I have a space outside of, like, school… And also it just kind of makes me upset, because it’s like our app, we’ve grown with it, and you’re taking it away from us.”
Because of TikTok’s precarious position between freedom of speech and national security risks, Dean Stephens believes that the courts must find balance in this particular circumstance, so as to be fair to both sides of the argument.
“Does the right to speech outweigh the protection or safety of Americans, or does the safety of Americans outweigh the right to [free] speech?” Dean Stephens said.
