The United States has recently made international news by banning TikTok. Although this has now been lifted as of the 25th January, it is still uncertain whether this will last; it all hinges on whether TikTok will be acquired by a US buyer. Although this particular ban made the headlines it is not a new concept: in 2023, TikTok was banned within the UK Parliament due to security concerns in terms of user data handling. Although this motivation makes the move understandable, could the US’ actions trigger a total ban in the UK as well? If this happens, the impacts on influencers, social movements and online communities cannot be underestimated.
Let’s go back. TikTok has a complex history: it actually started out as a completely different app. In 2014, Music.ly debuted in Shanghai. Its success led to the creation of its Chinese equivalent, Douyin in 2016 (which still exists to this day). The company behind Douyin, Bytedance, realised that they were onto something with it, and in 2017 bought over Music.ly for around $1B to rebrand it as TikTok, creating the platform we all know today. In 2018, the famous ‘gummy bear’ video was posted, generating millions of views and sparking worldwide use and promotion of TikTok as a social media site. This interest grew exponentially, with popularity soaring after Lil Nas X released Old Town Road on TikTok in February 2019. This video went viral, leading people to view the platform as a way to self promote and generate publicity. By 2021, TikTok was the most downloaded app, with The Social Shepherd reporting that it surpassed Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat.
So what went wrong? In September 2019, just seven months after Old Town Road, the first concerns were raised about content censorship on TikTok: The Washington Post reported that although content about Hong Kong democracy protests and police crackdowns were absent from TikTok, #trump2020 had 70 million views. While this may have been convenient for the election at the time, it prompted questions about how the algorithm operates, and whether it could be manipulated to push some content and hide others.
By December 2019, the Pentagon was recommending that all US military personnel delete TikTok from their phones, both government issued and personal. This is in contrast to the later UK Parliament ban, which only impacted government issued devices (although Parliament did block TikTok on the official WiFi). The first murmurings of a ban came from the Trump Administration in July 2020, although this was in retaliation to China’s alleged mishandling of the Covid-19 pandemic.
In December 2021, fresh concerns were raised about the TikTok algorithm’s volatility: The Wall Street Journal accused TikTok of promoting eating disorder content. Though TikTok quickly introduced new rules to combat this, the damage was done. Not only did this demonstrate the dangers of the algorithm and data processing, it also indicated the widespread impacts of harmful content.
The idea of banning TikTok simmered away, before being re-introduced in March of last year: a bill ordering either the complete ban of the app or see its sale to a US buyer was signed in April 2024. Interestingly, this bill did not deter either Trump or Harris from signing up to TikTok to post campaign materials in June and July of the same year. Ironic, right?
Even with all of these challenges, on the 18th of January the federal ban was enacted. TikTok went dark across the United States, much to the confusion of many of its 170 million users. Although this ban has been frozen for the time being, users have reported subtle changes to the content available on the app post-shutdown.
So where does the UK stand on all of this? TikTok has already been banned in other major countries: India (June 2020), Pakistan (October 2020) and Afghanistan (April 2022) have all shut down the app. Though the motivations may have been different, the outcome is the same: TikTok no longer exists in these areas. Interestingly, TikTok also has no presence in China, however this is not because of a ban. Rather, the continued existence of Douyin renders TikTok useless in the region.
It may seem outlandish, but the decisions of the US can and do have a major impact on the actions of the rest of the world. Previous boycotting of Kaspersky and Huawei demonstrate how US sanctions can catalyse a larger movement. Though the freeze continues, it may have already had the intended effect; a ban in the UK is not out of the realms.
If this ban were to happen, the ramifications are massive. Not only is TikTok a platform for influencers – who make a decent portion of their income from content creation – it it also used to quickly share information about protests and social movements, as well as personal safety tips (and this is not even beginning to discuss the fun side of content creation and social media). Even if TikTok were bought by the US, it would be interesting to see if a ban in the UK still occurred. The privacy concerns raised seem to stem from the way TikTok processes data and manages its algorithm. Buying the app would not necessarily provide a solution: rather, it would be the first step of many to properly address these issues.
So has time run out for the social media giant? It remains to be seen. A ban may very well be on the horizon, but it has been proven that it can be fought: though ultimately unsuccessful, a recent US Supreme Court case examined whether the Bill violates the First Amendment of the American Constitution concerning free speech (the equivalent of Articles 9 and 10 of the Human Rights Act that governs the UK). The US does tend to set the precedent for the rest of the world, so in a sense the outcome of the freeze will likely dictate what happens next here. Whatever the outcome of the potential buy, it is apparent that user safety on TikTok needs to be re-examined as a whole.