The Unsure State of TikTok:
What Will Creators Do?

            TikTok has swirled up controversy across the United States recently with CEO Shou Zi Chew testifying under oath to the United States Congress close to a month ago.

The question about the app is whether or not it is a United States Security threat, and this took roughly 5 hours to grill Chew about the app’s connection to China and their Communist government.

This is not a case of Democrat versus Republican, like United States has seen for so many other debates in congress. This is a fight between the United States and other countries, old and young people, and people in power and the regular citizens of America.

According to the Washington Post, there has been very little to no evidence actually put forward incriminating TikTok in any wrongdoing or national security threats.

The threat, according to government lawmakers, is that TikTok and China have been spying on United States users and stealing their information through the parent company of TikTok, ByteDance.

This is an issue for the United States government since they feel that with United States user’s data, the Communist party can influence users through mass sending out TikToks that can be essentially compared to propaganda. The United States thinks this could be extremely detrimental, especially to the teens and children that use the app.

They aren’t only worried about what could be sent to the younger generation, but what can also be hid from them.

The director of the National Security Agency Paul Nakasone, said to the Senate Armed Services Committee, “It’s not only the fact that you can influence something, but you can also turn off the message, as well, when you have such a large population of listeners.”

Many of TikTok’s practices aren’t any different than what United States-based social media companies deploy.

For example, TikTok was criticized for harvesting a user’s contact list in their phone in order to suggest other people to follow based on who is in your contact list. It has been observed that even if a user says no to this, the app will continue to promote accounts associated with your contact list.

This is a practice and automated message that every single other social media platform uses, most specifically Snapchat, who is a little bit more upfront about the process, telling users where exactly the app got the suggestion, displaying a message at the bottom of the suggestion that reads, “From your contacts”.

A lot of officials in congress are against TikTok, along with a lot of their supporters in the public, but many users and creators are fighting for the app.

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Alex Sakleh, a 22-year-old Elmhurst University student, has been spending a chunk of the last two years building a TikTok brand that is at risk with the new discussions eliminating the app from the United States.

“I watched the whole entire congressional hearing…My blood pressure was 160…that’s how angry I was.”

Sakleh has built up 4 accounts on TikTok, all of which post different genres of content, but his biggest page is focused posting sports stats and memes, a style that has become extremely popular on Instagram over the past 10 years.

This account has reached a total of 127,000 followers and racked up over 47 million likes across his posts, earning him a profit. He’s not the only one.

“You’re gonna kill a lot of small businesses when (TikTok) is their lifeline…promote organically without a single cent.”

America is supposed to be land of opportunity, which Sakleh has seized, but what happens to him and millions of others when the government takes the opportunity away?