On January 19, 2025, the threat of the U.S. TikTok ban, approved by Congress and signed by Former President Joe Biden, was executed; on the night of January 18, the TikTok app on users’ phones stopped working. Yet in the morning hours of January 19, the TikTok app resumed its services in the United States and on January 20, Inauguration Day, President Donald Trump signed an executive order issuing that the TikTok ban be paused for 75 days.
TikTok first started out as a Social Media app in September 2016, created by the Chinese company ByteDance. Over the years, the popularity of the app has increased. In 2022, TikTok became the most downloaded app in the world, quickly gaining more popularity over X (Formally Twitter), Instagram or any other social media app.
TikTok is also a widely popular app among Lewis High School students. One of its users is sophomore Samuel Hernandez Delcid. “Tiktok has videos for everyone because it has videos for anyone’s taste,” Hernandez Delcid said.
Despite the app’s global popularity, U.S. government officials were alarmed by concerns about the Chinese government collecting data on American users to their benefit. Last April, President Biden signed into law a bill passed by Congress known as the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act.
According to the Supreme Court of the U.S., this act states that it would be “unlawful for companies in the United States to provide services to distribute, maintain, or update the social media platform TikTok” unless TikTok was sold to a new parent company, separating it from its Chinese parent company ByteDance.
But TikTok still remains under Chinese ownership.
On January 17, The U.S Supreme Court upheld the ban, which meant that starting January 19, TikTok would be shut down to American users.
Before the ban, on the night of January 18 around 10pm EST, the TikTok app displayed the following message: “A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S. Unfortunately, that means you can’t use TikTok for now. We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office. Please stay tuned!”
American TikTok users from Lewis, such as Hernandez Delcid, and many others were taken by surprise not because of the ban on TikTok but the unexpectedly early timing. “I was surprised that it happened, and I did not like how it just suddenly stopped,” Hernandez Delcid said.
On Monday after the Inauguration, President Trump signed an executive order to delay the federal ban on TikTok by 75 days.
However, as A.P. Government teacher Heather Kunicki indicates, this order may face legal challenges. “It should be contested because an executive issued by the president cannot single-handedly overturn a law,” Kunicki said.
The reason as to why TikTok is popular among teenagers is because the app offers many different services. One of these services is primarily how easy it is to be engaged in TikTok.
Teenagers use TikTok in their free time because of its engaging algorithm that is determined by user interactions through likes, comments, and shares. TikTok reimburses creators who make popular videos with high view counts to encourage engagement with the app. This helps build the app and create more views.
Sophomore Genaro Rodas-Merino sees TikTok as entertaining to teenagers but also a business tool. “I think it’s important to them because for some teenagers, TikTok is their source of income, and it’s the way they use their free time,” Roda-Merino said.
TikTok can deliver news easier than other forms of media, which makes it a popular news source for teenagers at Lewis and beyond. For teenagers, it is much easier to open their phone and watch a video describing the latest news around the world than to read an article published online.
Sophomore Samuel Hernandez Delcid is a Lewis student who depends on TikTok for news. “TikTok has helped me because I learned different things around the world, and it helped me see the news,” Hernandez Delcid said.
Whether or not Hernandez Delcid, Rodas-Merino, and other TikTok users can continue to access their favorite app beyond the 75-day pause remains to be determined. Actions taken by the U.S. Government either in support of or against the popular app still viewed as a security threat are unresolved.
