TikTok Ban
4 min read
The TikTok ban went into effect one day before the presidential inauguration. If you tried to open the app during this time, you’d have been greeted with a popup message that reads: “A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S. 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.”
A few years ago in 2020, Trump blamed China for manufacturing and spreading COVID. On the heels of that came the panic regarding TikTok because surely an app owned by China was a threat to national security, even though it’s owned by a Singaporean. There was headline after headline quoting Trump’s intention to ban the app in the States. If you search Trump and TikTok today, the results tell a different story. He wants to give a 90-day extension before the ban goes into effect, he’ll allow the app to return on Monday, he wants to allow time for a US buyer to take control of the app.
Despite not actively using the app, the shift in narrative is interesting. Yes, the people voted for Kamala Harris and, yes, the Electoral College once again chewed up and spat out the people’s wishes. But look at the voter breakdown—it was a tiny, almost inconsequential margin of 1.5% between votes for Harris and Trump. The margin between votes for Biden and Trump was 4.5% in 2020. After this election, Trump holds the most number of cumulative popular votes won by any presidential candidate in American history. That’s concerning. In years past, we were told it would be the youth that saves America. I remember my peers campaigning for Hillary Clinton when Bernie Sanders was no longer an option. Sure, it was begrudging support, but it was there. Many of us knew we had to make a compromise and we did. It wasn’t enough, but at least we made the right choice—even if it was by a 2.1% margin.
I talk about the election results because more and more of the American youth is shifting right. It’s not a uniquely American phenomenon, as young people around the globe are becoming more and more conservative, but it’s especially heinous to see it up close. Middle schoolers chanting “Free Diddy” without knowing what it really means, 20-somethings in serious relationships where men serve the breadwinning role and women stay at home, gamerbros worshipping Elon Musk for his, frankly, baffling takes. Grown men tweeting “your body, my choice.” It’s frightening.
We were told that when it comes to the working class, it’s usually those with little education who vote red. But in 2024, even people with college degrees voted for Trump in higher numbers than in previous elections. The number of male voters for Trump was higher in 2024 than in previous elections. Even though Black youth largely favored Harris, there was a marked shift in increased support from 2020. When you couple these changes with the editorial tone shift in the media, all sorts of red flags go up. MSNBC’s morning hosts want to straighten out their relations with Trump while he levies multibillion-dollar lawsuits at various media outlets for biased coverage, and citing them as “enemies of the people.”
It’s easy, isn’t it? While he attempts to rewrite his own narrative regarding the TikTok ban, the media helps him with clickbait headlines proclaiming he will save the app. People who have had their attention spans killed by said app will accept that as true. It will garner him sympathy from the average user who either relies on TikTok for their livelihoods or have just become so incredibly dependent on it they can’t imagine life otherwise. A slide further to the right, even if it’s incremental. Fascism doesn’t arrive and announce itself by name.
In the time since I started writing this, TikTok is up and running again for many people in the country. The popup now says: “Thanks for your patience and support. As a result of President Trump’s efforts, TikTok is back in the U.S.!”
Who’s to say how long it’ll stay for, but it won’t be surprising if a not insignificant number of people credit him for this Lazarus moment. Just like it won’t be a shock if the GOP rally around him for an extension (or whatever else) to keep the app afloat after they all gunned to have its operations shut down. The atmosphere of anti-China sentiment, though propelled by Trump et al. over the last few years, now serves him. The youth, which makes up most of Tiktok’s users, can thank him for restoring the app while republicans can conveniently denounce their prior work so that they may co-sign Trump’s accomplishment.
-Connoisseur
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/01/19/tiktok-trump-executive-order-ban/
https://www.cfr.org/article/2024-election-numbers
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/15/trump-sues-media-outlets-bias
