The House on Wednesday passed a bill with broad bipartisan support that would force TikTok’s Chinese owner to either sell the hugely popular video app or have it banned in the United States. If the TikTok bill were to become law, it would probably deepen tensions between the United States and China over the control of important technologies.
– The New York Times on March 13, 2024
I’m all too tired to even attempt to sugarcoat the following message in any way that doesn’t entrench its logical foundations into the sludgy annals of schizophrenic caffeine-fueled misinformation, so for my sake and the sake of any readers fortunate (unfortunate?) enough to stumble upon this article, YES. TikTok MAY VERY MUCH RECEIVE A COUNTRY-WIDE BAN – if certain conditions aren’t met in the future. On the surface, it is done as a precautionary measure that prevents the potential pilfering of the personal data of American users by the ever-topical Chinese government.
Illustration: https://thechargerfrontline.com/
What a way to start an otherwise entertaining article, I understand. Fortunately, we’re not here to discuss the intricate politics of America and how the mere act of doing something is enough to bolster support occasionally more so than the action itself – I’m not an expert, and politics are very much thin ice – rather, the implications that occur come the implementation of such an order. TikTok is popular – perhaps more popular for its own good – and anything done to it will send catastrophic ripples across America. Context may be needed to fully explain such a drastic rise in influence and popularity, and so I will provide context.
To my surprise (and the surprise of some of my peers), I am – for my age, at the very least – a chanced individual, one of the few not swept up by the social media boom that spawned as a direct result of the pandemic having locked us all in airtight boxes of brick and plaster with nothing worthwhile to take the mind off of our predicament aside from the steel rectangle we as a collective had trained ourselves to carry within our pockets at all times regardless of occasion and mood, a device that had already become ubiquitous. With demand for entertainment comes a supply of said entertainment in droves – short form content churned out from creators across the globe that unanimously yet unwittingly purveyed a horrific cacophony of mangled ideologies, of wealth being above all, of the apparent falsity that is ‘love’ and relationships, of videos longer than 10 seconds being the spawn of Satan himself, powered by the simple yet concerningly effective strategy of combining short-form, attention-grabbing content doctored to appeal to the bored and easily distracted with an algorithm programmed to, with great apparent success, predict the type of content you enjoy, creating a feedback loop of endless content that ropes you in for an eternity. Effective. Incredibly, devastatingly effective – I only happened to avoid its influence through an inexplainable stubbornness against the recommendations of others.
TikTok (for lack of a better word) blew up. It had achieved success in China long before the pandemic and in nearly every other country after the pandemic, becoming the No.1 trending app even as I write, whose popularity and influence, despite showing some signs of finally waning, remains potent enough to dwarf nearly every other entertainment-based app on the market.
- As of early 2024, TikTok has over 1 BILLION monthly active users, roughly 1/8 of Earth’s total population, doubling that of Snapchat (Which reveals sideways the popularity of Snapchat, but that’s another story for another time) and catching up to Instagram at an alarming rate.
- Since its inception in 2016, TikTok has been downloaded over 3 billion times.
- ByteDance (The company that owns TikTok) is valued at a staggering $200 billion.
- Out of the 4.8 billion total internet users, over 20% of them are active users of TikTok, including over 1/3 of mobile internet users.
- There are 150 million TikTok users in America alone – by far the largest number out of any country in the world – larger than even China.
- 50 million daily TikTok users.
- And so much more. It NEVER ENDS.
This is where the nature of TikTok becomes relevant once more. I mentioned above that TikTok is primarily a website that emphasizes short-form content above all else. There is not much to contend with there, but most aren’t aware of just HOW short-term they really are. According to the official TikTok website, the average watch time per video is around 1.5-3 seconds, while the length of the average TikTok video ranges from 21 seconds to 30 seconds. This horrific mashup of statistics makes it so if you were to upload a TikTok video and have a mere 20% of it watched, your video is considered by the standards of TikTok to be ‘engaging’ – a spine-crushing epiphany dampened further by the addition of some more stats that claim the average TikTok user spends around 55 minutes per day browsing these videos which results in a total of 400-600 TikTok videos watched per day.
It’s also worth noting the demographic of TikTok to fully factor in so many numbers. Over 50% of content creators are young people between 18 and 24 years old, and about 45% of all TikTok users are Gen Z, with a significant tilt towards women, as 60% of TikTok users worldwide are female. It’s a widely held belief that TikTok appeals to young people tremendously more than older ones, and the data agrees: there’s a significant drop in TikTok users from ages 50+ with a relatively moderate yet considerable drop of users from ages 40 and above. Despite having such a large user base, the demographic that it appeals to is quite consistent.
Empirical evidence, though pragmatic and effectively the foundation on which any good analysis is built, is quite a bore to slog through. So, instead of dropping the both of us into even more mind-splitting numerical data, I’ll deliver unto you a smattering of anecdotal evidence that confirms somewhat the statistics above while commenting on how each one adds to the impact of a potential ban. It’ll be more entertaining, at the very least, if not useful or informative.
“TikTok is used at nearly all junctures of the day. Iconic yet painfully repetitive bits from songs flood the corridor as I leave my room and attempt to make peace with all that surrounds me with little success. I recall being at the cusp of falling to sleep only to be jolted awake by a most heinous cacophony of clips of empty, derivative motivational quotes (Espoused no less by none other than your favorite human trafficker scrounging for diminutive scraps of relevancy) interlinked with the new popular music clip (Note that we are playing fast and loose with the definition of music here as not a single drop of melody nor lyricism can be derived from such swill) in a fashion that eats away at the core of my being. Crude opinions formed on delicate subjects ossify as the previously mentioned algorithm built with the express purpose of pushing to the user an ouroboros of self-aggrandizing content does its job. It is everywhere – everywhere and anywhere.”
– A re-write of a rant about TikTok one of my friends had a year back, only now it is more relevant than ever, and its addition to the article felt warranted.
“No, absolutely not. From what I’ve seen, nearly everyone I know uses TikTok to some extent/capacity. Most people on my team use it. I use it occasionally, though not as much as them, and yes, before you ask, I can see the appeal of using it the way they do—I’m just not interested enough in them to do so. Yeah, you’re right. A TikTok ban will change things. A lot of things. I just can’t really put into words the exact number of things. I don’t know.”
– Quote from a student I questioned about TikTok after opening with doubts of its influence on students our age.
“Yeah, I use TikTok. You don’t? It’s fun! You should get it.”
– A quick answer to my question from a student whose name I couldn’t recall – my favorite kind of answer, really. Simple, to the point… Yet incredibly telling all the same
“I don’t use TikTok.”
– Many teachers, when questioned whether they use the app or not. Neat.
Anecdotal evidence linking up with empirical evidence to form a concise conclusion is one of the best things analysts experience…Supposedly. I’m not an analyst, and I’d be better off not making assumptions about them. Either way, now that anecdotal evidence confirms empirical evidence, it’s time to discuss the implications of a potential ban.
There are 120 million American TikTok users, mostly young adults. A country-wide ban from Congress would not only alter the way so many people live on a decently large basis (55 minutes spent per day on one app is a large chunk of the day, after all), it would also sever the relationship said young people have with their government. This is rather dangerous, especially considering the time the bill was passed – in an election year, when the youth are given a chance to dictate America’s future (Or, at the very least, given the idea that they could). TikTok has become so ingrained in the minds of many that a sudden ban would be nigh-unadaptable, so many would choose to find ways to skirt the regulations – VPNs of all kinds come to mind – and use TikTok regardless. For them, nothing would change, except now, most of the content would be from countries that aren’t America. For instance, Brazil has a large TikTok user base unimpeded by the ban, which will then be the country with the most users and creators.
Many who use TikTok but aren’t willing to get a VPN to establish connections with the app once more may need to find other ways to entertain themselves – which would be incredibly difficult. As mentioned above, TikTok has drastically reduced the attention span of many a student, and to force them to move on to other forms of entertainment so quickly would be unwise – Considering the time elapsed per reading, writing, or art session, they may not have the patience to finish even one. Therefore, they may instead consider alternatives to TikTok, such as YouTube shorts or Instagram Reels, in these apps that work similarly to TikTok and have similar retention rates and userbases. TikTok, in a way, is less an app and more a phenomenon – the lowered attention spans of the younger generation capitalized made manifest. The banning of TikTok wouldn’t miraculously solve all that, so chances are they’ll merely move on to something else.
TikTok is also a breeding ground of internet trends that grow, spread and get parodied until the original becomes the anomaly. The banning of TikTok wouldn’t stem the flow of such trends but would surely cut down on the speeds at which they form. Individual jokes and ‘memes’ may have a longer impact. This isn’t all that important in the grand scheme (especially in comparison to the other implications above) but is worth mentioning as trends, especially internet trends, are a staple of TikTok and TikTok-esque apps and thus will be affected due to the ban. The youth might have to spend less time reading up on the latest new things, which is always a good thing.
The older generations, on the other hand, will stand mostly completely unaffected. They’ve likely more important things to do than care about some random app getting the axe.
And lastly, I wish to reiterate that I don’t use TikTok – so I don’t care. Really.
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