By Carolina Alphonso, Staff Writer
On March 23rd, the CEO of TikTok, Shou Zi Chew, spoke in Congress for five hours to defend the app. There was only one goal in mind for some congressmen: to ban TikTok for good.
The main concern for Congress was if the app was stealing users’ data. TikTok is an international version of the originally Chinese app which grew rapidly in popularity and soon spread into a worldwide social media platform. With the concern about national security, Congress had passed a bill that prohibited users from downloading TikTok on a company-provided phone. But with this new hearing, there is the possibility of Tik Tok being banned in America on all devices. When asked about the potential TikTok ban in the US, Sophomore Armitta Nafisi commented saying “It’s just so stupid. It only seems like they’re being racist because they weren’t doing this with Instagram and Instagram has filters too! Why don’t they ask them about eye tracking?” Sophomore Karis Park added, saying, “It seems that they can just ban whatever they want now. There are other apps out there that can invade our privacy but they don’t question them.”
There is no doubt that TikTok has an influence on its users, especially minors. In the hearing, Congress brought up videos and pictures of children who participated in dangerous acts, an example being the “blackout challenge” where someone holds their breath for a long period of time until they pass out from the lack of oxygen. Senior Jason Nguyen stated, “It’s just something for all social media platforms. People follow things for peer pressure, popularity and other things. It’s not just off of one single platform.”
When Congress people questioned the safety and privacy of the app, Shou Zi Chew responded saying that they had no intention of stealing data. He even suggested that other social media platforms could be doing the same thing. Sophomore Micheal Gerdes commented that “security is a real issue we have to worry about, but the plan to move the servers to Austin will pretty much fix the problem.” TikTok has planned to move its servers to Austin, Texas, where employees can look over software and data, keeping our privacy extra safe, but this didn’t leave Congress satisfied.
There have been no further updates about the decision so far, so the only thing the public can do now is wait.