TikTok vs. Trump

by Inchara J & Arabi Mahanujam

edited by Taruni Manam & Harvi Karatha, Layout by Sahithi Lingampalli

TikTok is the app that nearly swept the USA off its feet. With everything from comedy skits, musical performances, memes, and dancing, TikTok was the ideal social media app for teens and young adults. However, where did it go wrong? Why did the incumbent U.S. President, Donald J. Trump, decide to ban TikTok from the United States?

Luckily, TikTok has not been banned yet. Although this is good for stars such as the Lopez Brothers, Charlie D’Amelio, and the SwayBoys, many are left to wonder why this event nearly happened. Let’s start at the basics. Tiktok is a social media platform owned by the Chinese Company ByteDance. The United States has been understandably scared of China ‘stealing’ their information through the use of social media: is this fear rational? Compared to other sites, such as Facebook, Reddit, and LinkedIn, TikTok’s data collection appears to be quite restrained. Similar to Reddit, TikTok copies information to a clipboard and stores it there. It watches things you see to generate your feed.

Additionally, TikTok does not have any Chinese employees. The obvious reason for this is that countries such as India and the U.S. would accuse them of relaying information from one country to China. Regardless of these restrictions, Donald J. Trump, the 45th and current president of the U.S.A., has expressed a desire to ban TikTok. However, due to the strong objections from users and influencers, he backed down. He suggested that if Microsoft bought TikTok, he would reconsider the ban.

Although the security issue is one major speculation as to why Trump intends on banning TikTok, there seems to be another matter at hand. According to Forbes, it is possible that Trump’s decision was affected by what happened at the Trump rally on June 19 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Due to the rally coinciding with Juneteenth, many people were angered and decided to form a campaign on TikTok and Twitter advising people to flood reservations with fake names, emails, and phone numbers.

Subsequently, many people globally bought tickets to the rally with no intention of attending to give false hope to the Trump administration. Two weeks later, the Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, spoke publicly about a TikTok ban. This caused many to speculate if the ban could somehow be related to the rally. Though this is merely a theory, several people think it could be true, considering that Trump did not speak about or mention TikTok being a potential security threat before the incident.

There are several potential reasons as to why Trump would choose to ban TikTok. Regardless, the more fundamental question remains unanswered. Can Trump legally ban an online application? Would it violate the First Amendment? According to Business Insider, it’s not as simple as you would think. However, there are certain workarounds that the administration can pursue. Even on a technical level, removing the app from Google Play or the App Store would prevent new downloads and updates, but it wouldn’t affect the millions of users already on the app.

If Trump were to ban TikTok, he could either stop its parent company, ByteDance, from conducting business with U.S. entities, or he could impose an executive order that would require federal review. As stated earlier, Microsoft confirmed that they were seriously considering buying TikTok’s US operations. If TikTok does not Americanize soon, Trump has insisted that his administration would take appropriate action to ban TikTok. Until then, however, TikTok can be enjoyed by verified creators, teens, and young adults in search of amusement.

* TikTok has been bought by Oracle, which, unfortunately, overthrew the bid for TikTok by Microsoft, causing the app to be banned on Sunday, September 20th. Unless, however, they manage to appease the president, which is a slim chance of course. 07, 2020, from https://www.businessinsider.com/can-trump-ban-tiktok-no-legal

References

Brown, A. (2020, August 02). Is This The Real Reason Why Trump Wants To Ban TikTok? Retrieved September 07, 2020, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/abrambrown/2020/08/01/is-this-the-real-reason-why-trump-wants-to-ban-tiktok/

Leskin, P. (2020, August 05). No, Donald Trump can't 'ban' TikTok. Retrieved September 07, 2020, from https://www.businessinsider.com/can-trump-ban-tiktok-no-legal-experts-cfius-alternative-options-2020-7

[1] PolyMatter (YouTube Channel), (August 4, 2020), The TikTok Ban, youtube.com, YouTube. Retrieved September 6th, 2020 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34qpwtU9uoI&feature=youtu.be