Opinion: State governments and schools across the country have begun to ban TikTok over concerns about cybersecurity. But these bans may not accomplish what they set out to do.
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On the Feb. 4 episode of Saturday Night Live, host Pedro Pascal led a skit about the extreme amount of fan cams and edits people make online about celebrities. Ironically, I don’t watch SNL all that often, but I was drawn to this episode after my entire TikTok page has been taken over by Pedro Pascal, Bella Ramsey and “The Last of Us” videos.
TikTok has become the place to go for all things pop culture — including hit TV shows — and it’s become my favorite app to mindlessly browse when procrastinating school work.
This may all come to an end soon though.
Schools — including the University of Washington, Arkansas State, Auburn, Oklahoma, Georgia, Idaho State and Iowa — have begun to ban the app on school-owned devices and its WiFi according to a report by the Associated Press. Many other states (Mississippi, Indiana, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Dakota and Wisconsin) have also moved to ban the app on state-issued devices.
Most recently, Texas Gov. Abbott announced a ban for government officials, prohibiting them from owning or downloading the software on both personal and government-owned devices.
While there is no federal ban on the app yet — excluding the ban for federal employees — Republican lawmakers have been pushing for its ban by urging Apple and Google to remove it from their app stores and by introducing legislation such as the ANTI-SOCIAL CCP Act.
Each of these bans have been driven by increasing cybersecurity concerns.
According to the Center for Internet Security, “TikTok’s data collection is more intrusive than other apps.” This is because the data TikTok collects includes personally identifiable information, such as your age, as well as device information, such as your phone’s geolocation.
But this isn’t unique to TikTok. Nearly any social media app you download on your phone will collect user data.
In 2014, Cambridge Analytica gathered the user data of more than 50 million Facebook users in an attempt to further former President Trump’s election campaign.
At the end of last year, reports show that user data of 400 million Twitter users was stolen and sold by hackers due to a bug in the application programming interface from June 2021 to January 2022.
This isn’t to say there aren’t mental and physical harms associated with the app.
A report by the nonprofit organization Center for Countering Digital Hate found that it can take less than three minutes after a user makes an account for them to see content related to suicide and roughly eight minutes to see content promoting eating disorders.
And despite how stupid they appear — cooking chicken in NyQuil and calling it “sleepy chicken” — risky trends may also put users at risk for the thrill of getting likes and shares.
But these harms don’t outweigh the positives this app has to offer.
As much as I despise referring back to the pandemic, TikTok served as a social outlet for those stuck in lockdown orders or quarantining, and it continues to serve that purpose today.
Like I mentioned before, TikTok is the place to go for the latest trends and updates, but it’s also used to enjoy fun content and temporarily take our minds off stress.
Ultimately, I don’t think students need to worry about the University of Oregon banning the app anytime soon, and I certainly do not think these bans will be effective. The football team, School of Journalism and Communication and University Housing programs all have active TikTok accounts. The university clearly isn’t opposed to the app, at least for now.
But even if the school were to ban the app, bans at other schools haven’t been entirely effective because they don’t consider students’ personal hotspots or cellular data usage.
In the meantime, while decisions about the app’s future are being determined, I’m going to continue to doom-scroll and procrastinate those upcoming assignments (including writing this paper).
