Among the acts taken by President Donald Trump on his first day in office was signing an executive order which extended the deadline for the selling or banning of social media app TikTok by 75 days. The app, and other apps by TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, were set to go dark on Jan. 19, arising both outrage and uncertainty from users, and bringing into question the constitutionality of a ban.
The Mountain Echo feels that banning TikTok is unconstitutional. It violates the free speech of creators on the app and takes away what, for many Americans, is one of their most readily available sources of unfiltered information. It is being banned without a valid reason.
Talk of a ban originally started during Donald Trump’s first presidential term in 2020. Talk continued and bills were continually posed until April 24, 2024, when former President Joe Biden signed the law which would officially ban TikTok, as well as apps such as video editing app CapCut and social media app Lemon8, all of which are owned by the chinese technology company ByteDance.
The law officially went into effect on Jan. 18, 2025 when American users of the app were greeted with a message informing them: “A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the US. 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.” The app was inaccessible for a total of 12 hours.
The reason it was unbanned, according to the app, is “as a result of President Trump’s efforts, TikTok is back in the U.S.!”
The reason why TikTok was banned in the first place? According to various US government officials who support the ban, they fear that TikTok is being used by the Chinese government for espionage.
The data collected by TikTok and the other leading social media apps is very comparable. TikTok stores anything users share with the app (including name, phone number, email address, etc.), users’ settings, content preferences (including what content people interact with versus scroll past, in-app search history and more), IP addresses and other cookies. The same things are collected by apps such as Facebook and Instagram, TikTok’s lead competitors.
TikTok being banned ends up seeming like a massive first amendment violation, despite rulings by the Supreme Court saying otherwise.
Banning TikTok will silence the voices of creators on the app, both within and outside of the US. This will limit how US citizens are able to receive information from the angles that other people, both domestically and internationally, see it.
Ultimately, banning TikTok will lead Americans to be much less aware of the world around them, what goes on in it and how the people in it feel towards different issues.
j • Feb 4, 2025 at 1:36 pm
insta reels is a good option