By Samson Le
With the surge in popularity of the Chinese-owned app TikTok unifying and entertaining young people, there are allegations from the White House about security risks about China stealing American data, resulting in United States President Donald Trump proposing a ban on the app.
Here’s what Barons think about this issue.
“I think the ban on TikTok is the most useless thing he could be prioritizing right now, there are real issues to be solved but he wants to focus his attention on banning an app where people have fun making small videos,” senior Ryan Rodriguez said.
“I believe that President Trump’s proposed TikTok ban is setting a worrisome precedent. Controlling the TikTok algorithms and curating what young and impressionable children in the US are viewing daily is dangerous, especially in the wrong hands. I just hope that our current administration has weighed the pros and cons because again this could set off a dangerous precedent and allow for future presidents and/or political groups to just ban things arbitrarily. But overall what we are seeing here is a new type of warfare which does not involve bombs and tanks but it involves information and technology. Banning TikTok would ensure that no more data would be accessible to the CCP and that the CCP would not have any influence over elections and young American minds,” senior Devan Pathak said.
“I think either way it’s unfair because there’s only two reasons he would have to ban it. The first reason is because he’s racist. The second reason is because he’s salty that people are speaking out against him on the app,” sophomore Eric Nash said.
“I personally think that the ban on TikTok is beneficial for our country but as someone who uses TikTok, I’ll be pretty sad if it gets banned. Personally, I don’t want it to get banned but I can see why some people do,” junior Jayden Trieu said.
“Personally, I’m not extremely affected by the ban on TikTok but I do enjoy the ‘short video’ concept of TikTok. There are a lot of people out there who really enjoy TikTok, for both watching and creating content so that’s where I feel sad towards the ban on TikTok,” sophomore Kaylee Nguyen said.
