For the past few months, the government has been drafting a bill that would ban all Chinese owned apps which includes Tik Tok. If this bill passes, Americans would have Tik Tok deleted from their phones, without the ability to re-download it.

Per Statista, Tik Tok was the most downloaded and most used app by Americans in 2022.  This would affect many students who access the app everyday. 

Sophomore Nolan Stines uses Tik Tok every day when he has free time.

“Tik Tok is a great way to just kill some time. Most days when I get home from baseball I finish my homework then get on Tik Tok,” said Stines.

Sophomore JP Welch talks on how Tik Tok being banned would affect him.

“If Tik Tok was to get banned I feel kids my age would have a riot. It is such a big part of so many kids’ lives,”said Welch.

The reason the government wants to terminate Tik Tok on phones is because they believe the company that owns it (ByteDance) is using it to gather information from American users. The introducers of the bill believe that having Tik Tok or any other Chinese app on your phone allows them to look at phone records and track your location. Another reason the Senate has introduced this bill is because they believe that the owners of the app are filtering what goes on Chinese citizen’s feeds, but giving Americans and other countries unfiltered “for you pages” which are just videos that are picked for you based on what you have liked. 

The United States is not the first country to introduce a bill like this, and would not even be the first to act upon it. Earlier this month the UK banned Tik Tok among other devices on all government devices.

While Tik Tok was the first platform to introduce a reel type feed, other social media platforms have started to add them. Companies like: Instagram, Meta, and even YouTube have them now.

As of March 7, the Biden Administration has backed the bill; however, at the time of publication, the bill has not passed. Many students eagerly await the results.