Will TikTok be banned? Young Voters Criticize Leaders as Ban Threat Looms

Will TikTok be banned: “It was brutal,” Rep. Jeff Jackson, D-N.C., told his viewers in a March TikTok video that came out days after a heated meeting in Congress about the popular app.

Lawmakers from both parties questioned TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew for more than four hours because they thought the popular app could be a threat to national security. The Chinese company ByteDance owns TikTok. Leaders from all political parties are worried that the app could be used to spy on its 73 million American users and spread false information.

Will TikTok be banned? Young Voters Criticize Leaders as Ban Threat Looms

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley renewed her call for a TikTok ban last week after videos on the site praised 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden. Haley’s daughter had been attacked for using the app by Vivek Ramaswamy, who is running against her for the Republican presidential ticket.

But Haley and the political class, which is mostly made up of Baby Boomers and Generation X, are eager to shut down TikTok. However, younger voters told USA TODAY that the attacks are unfair and based on bad information.

In her second year at the University of Akron, Aveline Clark called the claims against TikTok “laughable,” “xenophobic,” and “honest.”

“American companies like Google and Meta are also stealing our data,” Clark, 20, told USA TODAY. “And the government isn’t doing anything about that. We’re not banning Google, we’re not banning Meta. But for some reason, we want to ban TikTok.”

In Ireland earlier this year, Meta was fined $1.3 billion for breaches of data privacy, and TikTok was fined $370 million. As part of a plea deal in a case about online privacy, Google has also agreed to pay $23 million to users. The company Meta has also been fined billions of dollars by governments around the world for privacy issues.

Both platforms have promised to be open about how they use user data and have criticized court efforts and other claims made against them.

Hootsuite, a social media management tool, says that about 40% of TikTok’s users are between the ages of 18 and 24. A Pew Research Center poll found that about a fifth of people ages 18 to 29 said they get their news from TikTok every day.

Clark said that politicians’ threats to ban TikTok could get them into trouble with teenagers and young voters.

“It really does not help their image at all. And politicians, in general, do not need another issue to make them seem more inauthentic,” she said.

‘They don’t understand it’: TikTok divides generations in politics

There is a student in college named Keely Calloway who uses TikTok every day. That politicians are trying to ban the app shows a bigger gap between generations, she said.

“They’re just going against TikTok mainly because they don’t understand it,” Calloway, 18, said.

Calloway brought up the meeting that the House Energy and Commerce Committee held in March.

Judges and lawmakers “They were basically asking for nonsense,” she said.

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“When you have 75-year-old politicians asking, ‘Does TikTok connect to my Wi-Fi network?’ people are not really going to take those politicians seriously,” Calloway added, referring to an eyebrow-raising question by 52-year-old Rep. Richard Hudson, R-N.C.

“Some of the questions were good and some definitely were not,” Jackson wrote in a post after the meeting, adding that “the majority of complaints that were raised apply to practically all social media platforms.” Jackson has more than 2 million followers on TikTok.

Some people are not just politicians who are worried about TikTok. Some presidential candidates, like the Republicans in the third and most recent GOP discussion, have talked about limits or a national ban.

The app was promised to be banned by Chris Christie, who used to be governor of New Jersey. He said that he thinks the app is “polluting the minds” of young people who use it.

As he runs for reelection next year, President Joe Biden has said that he will ban the app if the Chinese owners of TikTok don’t sell their share of the social media giant.

Clark said that politicians’ efforts to get rid of TikTok don’t make them look strong on national defense; instead, they make them look “out of touch” with young voters.

“Complaining about social media and complaining about TikTok just kind of lends to that image of (an) old man who doesn’t understand anything,” she said. “It does not help their chances. It does not help their public opinion.”

Young people are aware of the problems with TikTok and are against a complete ban.

Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, head of the youth voting group NextGen America, said that TikTok is one of the best ways for Millennials and members of Generation Z to connect with each other and stay up to date on the news.

“TikTok serves as a huge platform where young people receive and consume their news and information and helps shape a lot of their viewpoints about what’s happening in the world,” she told USA TODAY.

That wide reach can also turn it into “the wild, wild west,” as Tzintzún Ramirez put it, calling for doubt and rules.

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“The truth is, it’s a double-edged sword. Yes, it’s a great way to reach and engage young people,” Tzintzún Ramirez said. “A lot of young people also receive a lot of misinformation and disinformation on the platform.”

Young voters told USA TODAY that they understand the worries people have about TikTok, such as fears about data privacy, and that they might be in favor of some regulatory measures.

“Congress has the power to curb, to restrict, to do a lot of preventative measures,” said Jeremiah LaPorte, a high school senior and youth activist in New Jersey. “Saying that there’s no way to take preventative measures, and the only thing to do is to take it away in total – I just think that’s a little extra.”

Calloway said that young people like her are more worried about losing the app than about possible security risks.

Says Calloway, “Most of what’s going on right now seems like just another Red Scare situation. There’s nothing really scary that you should be afraid of, but they’re trying to find something to scare you of so they can ban this thing.”

Instead of rules, Clark said she would like to see more teaching about how to keep the Internet safe and how to moderate it. She also said that the rules should be the same for all social media sites.

Clark said, “Young people get it.”

“You are probably going to have data stolen from you without knowing it…” she said about people who use social media. A lot of young people just accept it. And it’s not that I think we should keep accepting it… But young people can see through lawmakers’ attempts to make TikTok look like the only bad Communist company that steals data.

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew speaks in front of the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Thursday, March 23, 2023, about the platform’s privacy and data security practices for users and how they affect children. The meeting takes place on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.

TikTok can also help leaders reach out to young people who might vote.
Voters under 30 also pay attention to leaders who talk to them on TikTok. “LaPorte, 17,” he said.

“You can tell who is hearing the message of connecting to the young voters and who is not,” he said, adding that it’s something other young people “should definitely take note of when deciding who we want to represent us, and who’s making our policy.”

Clark told Jackson that she thinks his “authentic” style is what makes him successful as a congressman from North Carolina.

Calloway agreed with Jackson that she has connected with people her age by adding them to the government.

“A lot of people on TikTok trust him because of the fact that he’s so open and so transparent. And I noticed a lot of youth really look up to him,” Calloway said.

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