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On Wednesday, March 13, in an overwhelming 352-65 vote, the United States House of Representatives passed a bill that could allow the social media application TikTok to be erased from app stores nationwide.
It is unclear whether or not the Senate will also pass this bill, though President Joe Biden has confirmed that he, in fact, will sign the bill into effect should the Senate also pass the bill.
This potential ban has led to an uprising from many famous TikTok influencers, many of which receive a large portion of their income from the app.
A number of TikTok influencers also protested the banning of the app outside of the United States Capitol Building.
Los Angeles influencer Kevin Norman, who has amassed nearly 250 thousand followers on TikTok, uses the app to share his love for reading and books.
“TikTok, in a way, has created this space where we communicate and learn so many things,” Norman says in an interview with NBC Los Angeles in regards to the bill. “To try to get rid of that makes it seem like, oh, you don’t want us to know as much, or you don’t want us to learn as fast.”
This is not the first time the United States government has threatened a TikTok ban, however. In 2020, former President Donald Trump attempted to ban the site across the country, believing it to be a national security risk.
Trump has since changed his views on the ban, believing that getting rid of TikTok in the U.S. will only make Facebook bigger and that Facebook is “bad for our country” because he believes it to always have been “anti-Trump.”
The reason so many are in favor of this ban is the fact that TikTok is a Chinese company, and due to the less than friendly relationship between China and the U.S., people are led to believe that the Chinese Communist Party is somehow using the app to spy on American citizens and obtain our personal information.
Washington House Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers, who voted in favor of banning the app, asserts in a recent interview that American intelligence agencies have reason to believe that TikTok is being used as a “tool of the Communist Party” to acquire the information of American citizens.
I personally am completely indifferent as to whether or not TikTok should be banned. Regardless of whether or not Americans are being spied on through the app, it is nonetheless detrimental to the mental well-being of all of those that use it.
Countless hours of lying in bed and aimlessly scrolling on the “For You Page” for a rush of dopamine is not beneficial to Americans, or anybody, in any capacity.
TikTok is undoubtedly one of the many reasons as to why countless young people nowadays suffer from attention issues, including myself.
The constant need to scroll to a new video for a hit of dopamine is in no way beneficial to anyone’s mental health, especially that of young people.
Not only is TikTok another social media website for Americans to spend their time lazily and unproductively scrolling through, it is also a breeding ground for the spread of misinformation and lies.
Many rumors about a vast variety of people and topics have been spread through the use of the TikTok app. Celebrities such as actress Millie Bobby Brown have discontinued use of the app due to bullying and harassment.
Not only is the app yet another outlet for bullying and the spreading of false information, it is also another way in which predators can achieve easy access to their victims.
There are many influencers on TikTok who post videos of their kids as a means of income, making it even easier for pedophiles to access content of young children. Many of these influencers have also been known to exploit their children on apps such as TikTok.
All in all, I believe that social media in general is a very dangerous, unhealthy place for anybody to be on, and the ban of one social media website will not necessarily harm anybody in the long run.
Influencers who use the app as a main source of income can use any other app to promote their businesses, such as Instagram.