If someone purposefully set fire to your house and then handed you a fire extinguisher, would you thank them for saving it? TikTok users are asking this question this week after the app sent out a pop-up notice praising President Donald Trump for ensuring the app is accessible in the United States after a brief shutdown.
One hundred and seventy million Americans were disconnected from the rest of the world when TikTok shut down their U.S. servers from around 10:40 p.m. Saturday to around 1 p.m. Sunday. This brief “ban” was nearly five years in the making.
In 2020, Trump led the fight to ban TikTok in the United States based on national security concerns. He passed an executive order that singled out the app, saying, “[A]t this time, action must be taken to address the threat posed by one mobile application in particular, TikTok.”
Since then, the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act has been passed with bipartisan support in Congress and upheld by the Supreme Court in a unanimous decision. Despite agreement across the aisle, this ban did not represent public opinion.
The narrative that TikTok is a dangerous application because it steals data and should not be owned by a Chinese company is unfair. The data collection in question is on par with the standard practices of American-owned apps like Facebook and Instagram.
Remember in 2019 when the personal data (emails, full names, phone numbers, and locations) of 530 million Facebook users was exposed to hacking forums? According to NPR, mere months before that occurred, “Facebook reached a $5 billion settlement with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission for violating an agreement with the agency to protect user privacy.”
We could also go back to 2018 when a whistleblower revealed the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The Guardian reported that “The data analytics firm that worked with Donald Trump’s election team and the winning Brexit campaign harvested millions of Facebook profiles of US voters, in one of the tech giant’s biggest ever data breaches, and used them to build a powerful software program to predict and influence choices at the ballot box.”
Let’s not single out TikTok when we pretend to care about data and propaganda. The call is coming from inside the house.
After spearheading the anti-TikTok crusade during his first presidency, why would Trump change positions now? Removing foreign competition would certainly benefit his billionaire buddies, Musk and Zuckerberg, who own the most popular American social media apps: Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and X (formerly Twitter).
One theory is that Trump reversed his position on TikTok the day before his inauguration to gain favor with young people. When TikTok launched back up after the ban, users were greeted with a message that read: “Thank you for your patience and support. As a result of President Trump’s efforts, TikTok is back in the U.S.”
The free shoutout from TikTok is worth noting since it went to all 170 million Americans active on the platform. The TikTok “ban” and subsequent resurrection stunt are part of a broader American problem that President Biden warned us about in his farewell address: an oligarchy is taking root.
Oligarchies exist when a government is run by a few elite or wealthy people who use their power to benefit themselves.
This was on display at Monday’s inauguration, when six of the wealthiest men in the world sat behind Trump as he took the oath of office: Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Sundar Pichai, Tim Cook, and (notably) TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew. These men control our digital communications, social media, search engines and devices.
We also know that Trump gifted Musk his own government agency and office in Washington. The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has already been hit with lawsuits courtesy of Democracy Forward, alleging that DOGE is a “shadow operation led by unelected billionaires.”
We should be even more concerned about the rise in misinformation and propaganda pushed through our algorithms and broadcast news outlets. One reason users were upset about the TikTok ban was that it removed a giant platform for them to speak their minds and access information from across the world.
We were all exposed to the horrors of the war in the Middle East, and videos of police brutality were reposted for all to see. It kept us informed with raw accounts of events as they occurred. The platform also provides a place to organize and advocate for various issues and causes.
The current president has proclaimed himself the “savior” of the popular video app after being the first to initiate the ban. Do not be fooled by his tactics.
I am nervous about what occurred in the “room where it happened” during the 14 hours the app was down. Did Shou agree to sell to Meta? Will TikTok censor certain topics or videos? Is the algorithm different now?
We don’t know what (or if anything) was traded away to gain the President’s favor.
As an avid social media user, I will continue using these platforms and apps to stay informed about what is happening in our world. However, it is difficult to enjoy them when I know our communications and information are all owned by the same few billionaires with agendas we don’t know anything about, especially now that they are publicly aligning themselves with Trump and infiltrating our government.
This is not a new issue. Money has been in politics for a long time.
We defeated an oligarchy during the first Gilded Age (1870-1900) when the American people resisted corporate greed, which caused the depression known as the Panic of 1893. We can learn from the past and act quickly to prevent further damage.
Stay vigilant. Get your news from various sources. Don’t repost something before checking to make sure it’s legit.
Use physical media, limit your cable news intake, and boycott and delete unwanted or unneeded apps.
This is not a Republican or Democrat issue. There is no left or right. There is only the top and bottom.
We must hold our leaders accountable rather than fight with each other, which is what these oligarchs want us to do. We have more in common with the immigrant that Trump wants to be deported than we do with a billionaire in a Cybertruck.
We should heed Biden’s warning, considering the significant roles these wealthy CEO tech giants will play in Trump 2.0.
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Creative coordinator for publishing and marketing at Good Faith Media. She received her Bachelor’s degree in Mass Communications from Missouri Southern State University and her Associate of Arts degree from Ozarks Technical Community College in Springfield, Missouri. Chisholm was an Ernest C. Hynds Jr. intern with GFM for the summer of 2021.
