What can be learned from the TikTok ban 

After over five years and many battles with the United States government, TikTok was finally banned this past Sunday Feb. 19^th. This most recent attempt to kill the app, a divest-or-ban law which started in March 2024, has come a long way since the idea was originally floated by then President Donald Trump in 2019. Yet, after barely 12 hours of being offline, TikTok was revived following promises to save the app by now incoming President Trump. It’s a distinctly bizarre moment for many Gen Z-ers, myself included, with the many months of drawn-out tense build up towards the fated death of the beloved social media app, followed by an almost immediate reversal. Although cut extremely short, the impact of this cultural moment is still worth investigating. It’s not every day that the most downloaded app in the world and one of most powerful drivers in American youth culture gets wiped off the map entirely, and the different actors in this event reveal several important themes for our generation today on the political forces of our country.  

To start, the reactions coming from people regarding the app being banned fall generally into two categories which are important to note, those who recognize the political implications of the ban and those who don’t. Whether those in former part lament its death and their ability to doomscroll before bed or celebrate it as being a good thing for the attention spans of youth everywhere, any reaction to the ban which doesn’t recognize the political gravity of the situation is frankly missing the point. It’d be one thing if the app shut down on its own, but the case is that politicians didn’t want you to be able to use this app anymore and it’s particularly important to understand why.  

The TikTok ban took away one of the greatest tools of youth discussion and organizing we’ve ever seen. It was a platform that was fundamentally different from any other in existence that promoted intra-platform group discussion capable of really mobilizing people. The signature features of the app such as the blue comment hyperlink search, video comment replies and even the experimentory nature of the algorithm itself meant the ability to affect the dominant conversations on the app was opened to everyone. As a result, the landscape on TikTok in terms of discussion on the dominant political topics, most importantly about Israel, was quite different from what happened on other social media platforms and generally bent more progressive. It wasn’t that the app artificially pushed such ideologies, it just gave more of a mouthpiece to a wider range of people, and that’s what they came up with. Republicans have been very forthcoming about their dissatisfaction with this, as the original purveyors of the idea to ban TikTok. Former Republican Senator Mitt Romney plainly stated this past May that his support for the ban was because, “If you look at the postings on TikTok and the number of mentions of Palestinians, relative to other social media sites — it’s overwhelmingly so among TikTok broadcasts.” 

Also, for the record, the Pro-Israel lobby isn’t the only force in killing TikTok, many billionaires (Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, etc.) all have much to gain financially from killing this competitor, especially since it happens to have the majority of discussion being against them. It’s not difficult to imagine the app, which showcased such overwhelming love for Luigi Mangione, might appear a bit undesirable to those of the same class as Brian Thompson, especially since this is the one platform they do not own.  

Still, the point is that this is a matter of speech and the censorship of everyday young Americans who happened to threaten those in power enough after being given a real voice online.  

Okay, back to reality. TikTok is not banned anymore. So what?  

Well for starters, let’s be clear that Trump coming in to save the day is a political chess move. It’s not that he had a change of heart over the app in his new term, but rather the power dynamic over TikTok has greatly shifted in five years. Essentially, democrats were able to do what he couldn’t in 2019 and actually succeeded in killing it, but they didn’t care that the ban was a widely unpopular move among young people. This is a group Trump has historically not done great with, and he now has the choice to do something they’ll like and benefit from it, or ignore it and not be at fault. It’s clear in this situation that he has extreme leverage over TikTok. It’s also already becoming clear that he used it in some way given the companies overt public gratitude towards him and rumors of future American joint ownership in the app. In short, Trump saving TikTok means he can exploit his position to gain influence over it, completing his monopoly of popular social media sites, with Musk and Zuckerberg already in his corner. Although what will come of this remains to be seen, it’s clear the political machinations surrounding TikTok are not as altruistic as they may seem. 

Political actors on both sides seeking to use TikTok for certain ends is clearly one of the most important trends to recognize in this issue, but they’re not the only ones playing games here. In the days and weeks leading up to the ban, there was a certain air of depressed and humorous resignation over the eventual end of the app. It was a distinct cultural moment which could be felt in every post on the platform, a looming reality over everyone’s heads. Yet, one group I was surprised to see join in on the discussion was other large corporations themselves. In about 15 minutes of scrolling on the Saturday before the ban I personally saw posts from Paramount Pictures, Fandango, Sony, Duolingo, Drumstick and even Kentucky Fried Chicken: all making memes and sentimental comments about their time on the app. This is by no means the full list, as CNN found other companies such as The Ordinary, Jack in the Box, Walmart, Wendy’s and more. All these posts attempted to connect with users over the common sadness, with the same goal of selling them more products. “What are we going to do with this extra time now that TikTok’s gone?! Maybe watch more movies on Paramount Plus while drowning our tears in buckets of KFC wings and Drumstick ice cream bars.” The idea behind these disguised ads was clear: capitalize on the moment and sell hard. Even Meta started running ads just before the ban kicked in, trying to get people to go to Instagram reels.  

The one that I found the most pervasive though came in the form of Ben and Jerry’s making political commentary on the situation. They made two separate posts, gaining a combined total of over 11 million views, showcasing their partnership with the People’s March and telling viewers to get to the streets to defend their freedoms. I saw people all throughout different comment sections abuzz with how Ben and Jerry’s was “resisting” and helping us fight back. Let’s be clear about something though, ultimately they’re a company with a profit incentive too. Becoming the official ice cream of one march does not make them an ally to the people, and it’s important that we raise our collective political awareness to look past these distractions towards real efforts to make change. Just look at the fact that the very next post on their account was an advertisement for a new larger ice cream size and a corresponding sweepstakes for people to win some for themselves. This post received almost 7 million views, significantly higher than the rest of their posts, undoubtedly because of the increased traffic to their account after the rally announcement. If people want to make real change they need to understand when they’re being sold something, even when the reality is sweet.  

The final point worth mentioning is that although I refer to TikTok as being a great tool for young people today, ultimately it is also just a company trying to exploit us. The point to all its choices is to keep us on the app for longer, show us more ads, increase our screentime and literally get us addicted to our phones. We might joke about “brain rot” but that is actually what happens when we use this app too much. Any lamentation of TikTok should be focused on the loss of community and ability for people to organize themselves towards a purpose, because that connection is real in a way when taken in moderation, but not the app itself. It’s more accurate to say that people were able to co-opt a tool meant to pacify them and, at least in some ways, turn it into a potential source of good.  

When all of these angles are taken into account the point becomes this: no one has our best interests at heart. Democrats, Republicans and private companies, including even TikTok itself, are all just trying to get something from us. It’s clear that one of the most important battles for the future of this nation is over the time, attention and ability to speak out of our generation. We can only rely on ourselves to steer it in a direction that will help us.