Over 170 million people could lose access to the short-form video social media platform TikTok from Sunday, with users across the world likely to be affected too. United States courts will decide whether to ban the immensely popular app in a row over data privacy, national security, and foreign influence – something which the UK has already started to grapple with too.
Have your say! Should TikTok be banned in the UK? Do you hope that something can be done to save it? Comment below, and join in on the conversation.
In April 2024, American lawmakers concerned about the possibility of the Chinese spying on American citizens through apps like TikTok set a deadline for its Chinese parent company to sell up.
This deadline for Chinese company ByteDance to sell TikTok is expiring on Sunday, which will prevent Americans from downloading the app. It won’t immediately “go dark”, but TikTok won’t be able to update or service the app either, meaning it will eventually break until the ownership situation is resolved.
The UK government has already banned TikTok on government devices due to concerns about cybersecurity, so some action has already been taken here. However, there is no indication that the UK is ready to follow suit with a full ban.
There are hopes that President-elect Donald Trump, who will become President on Monday, will halt the ban of the enormously popular app and find another solution. He is known to be a fan of the app, with close advisors saying that they want to find a way to keep TikTok around in a more secure way.
TikTok users have already started to look into alternatives, with Chinese social media app RedNote or Xiaohongshu rocketing up the “most downloaded” charts on app stores. RedNote is effectively the Chinese version of TikTok, both owned by the same company.
Users are sticking their noses up at American alternatives like Instagram’s Reels, despite the security concerns that led to the TikTok law in the first place.
There also been a surge in downloads of language learning app Duolingo’s Mandarin courses, reports the Mirror, thought to be down to English speakers wanting to interact with the Chinese users and algorithms on RedNote. The reverse is happening too, with Chinese users saying they are learning English with “TikTok refugees” – but some new users have fallen foul of strict Chinese censorship law.
Have your say! Should TikTok be banned in the UK? Do you hope that something can be done to save it? Comment below, and join in on the conversation.