Why Is Tikktok Be Banned

Isaac Santana Mrs. Gilbert English 8-3 13 March 2024 Banning TikTok Chinese-owned company Bytedance and their app TikTok are being threatened with a national ban after the company was accused of harvesting American information. TikTok is a social media platform where millions of people around the world can share and create content for others. TikTok has been a very big topic in the news recently, with Congress threatening TikTok with a nationwide ban, which a lot of Americans are upset about. Congress fears that TikTok, with the American information that they have, will give or be forced to give the Chinese Communist Party all information that they have on Americans. This is a very controversial topic because more than half of TikTok’s community

Supporters of the ban want TikTok to be banned because TikTok poses a National Security Threat to the U.S. Government. Sense TikTok is a Chinese company and is run in China. Congress thinks information on Americans being collected by a Chinese company is a threat to American citizens and the U.S. government. In ProCon.org’s article, they use a quote from the U.S. Representative on the situation “The U.S. government cannot ignore TikTok as a potential national security threat, even if efforts to crack down on the company alienate a generation of future voters. Republicans [and] Democrats agree this is a threat. We have to deal with it before it’s too late,” (Galagher). In the quote, Mike Gallagher explains that we can't wait to do anything about TikTok and cutting down on the company is not an option and we have to do something about this threat before it's too

“Specifically, there are concerns that the company could share sensitive user data with the Chinese Communist Party (the CCP), track the videos watched by Americans, and even manipulate the information seen by Americans to sway public opinion about China and influence American elections, serving, in a sense, as a propaganda and spying arm of the CCP.” (ProCon.org). Here ProCon is saying that TikTok can willingly or be forced into sharing American info and could manipulate the U.S.’s future. With TikTok having American information, TikTok could share that information and put the U.S. and the government in danger. Admittedly, people who don't want TikTok to be banned will argue that a lot of other social media apps collect information from users Other social media apps like Facebook and Google collect even more data from their users than TikTok does. According to ProCon.org, they state “In fact, Facebook and Google both collect more personal data from users than TikTok.com”. Here, ProCon states that other apps may collect even more data than TikTok