Is Tiktok’s Trial Justified?

Tik Tok should not be considered as much of a threat as it has been recently and people all around, specifically Congress, needs to accept what Tik Tok is doing. The CEO of Tik Tok, Shou Zi Chew, testified in a trial against Congress on March 23, regarding the data information that Tik Tok can access. Having over 1.5 billion worldwide users, people were eager to find out how much of that information was being shared and what damage had already been done. What the U.S. Congress ended up doing was making a mockery of themselves and the nation to show just what little they knew about the platform. While the case failed to provide valuable information, people were still worried about Tik Tok accessing their personal files.

Most people have heard of Tik Tok and how it can be addicting for its main users — teenagers. CNN Business covered the whole trial and had some key takeaways for people that did not watch it. One of the main points in this trial was for the safety of children on the app, to which Chew responded with facts that in settings within the app, there are countless settings to keep content that may be explicit to children, off their screens. Chew argued that the reason children may not be safe on the app is because they have not paid attention to the limitations that can be set. Regarding the addiction in the app, Tik Tok created a very convincing algorithm that makes its users always want to scroll to see the next video. Again, in response, Chew said yet again that there is another setting that makes sure any person under 18 years of age that uses the app is limited to 60 minutes a day.

Many students at Campolindo who use Tik Tok seem to have their own strong opinions against the trial. Sophomore Carson Helder said, “There is no reason to ban Tik Tok, people don’t understand that it is safe to use.” As a Tik Tok user, Helder has shared that in the years he has had the app none of his information has been stolen nor has he been led into scams.

Throughout the Tik Tok trial, there were congressmen asking questions they seemingly didn’t know were incredibly basic. Questions like, “If I connect my phone to wifi, can Tik Tok access the other devices on the same network?” Every app on every phone is able to tell how many devices are on any given network, which is why sometimes a wifi connection might be down, it is overloaded with too many devices. The whole trial seemed to be focused around people that had no understanding of how not just Tik Tok, but any device works when connected to wifi and how they access people’s information. In order for out congress to put up a fair trial, they should at least know what they are talking about

It is clear that the users of Tik Tok will be against the US banning. The details of the trial justify their views as it displayed congress’s great confusion on how basic technology works. The users of Tik Tok will obviously be against its banning in the US, and with the confusion about the most basic technology in congress it doesn’t seem like it will happen in the near future. While still up in the air, a lack of evidence remains that Tik Tok is using third party applications and user’s data which means it is relatively safe to users that are prone to scams and identity theft.