A couple of days after the TikTok ban was temporarily implemented, students are expressing their opinions on the ban.
“I was very upset,” Junior Shami Pandey said.
This weekend, students spent approximately 12 hours without TikTok before they received a message stating that it was unbanned for the moment due to the app’s collaborative efforts with President Donald Trump.
The ban was supposed to start on Sunday, Jan. 19. However, users were outraged when they unexpectedly lost access to the app before midnight on Saturday.
“I was saving all of my old TikToks full of memories from elementary school,” Pandey said. “I thought I lost all of those memories.”
Like Pandey, much of the internet expressed their opinions and overall anger about the ban coming early. Even the famous Duolingo social media accounts chimed in:
“At least we give you until midnight,” they said in a tweet, referring to the streak feature on their popular language learning app.
The battle to ban TikTok has been going on for years. However, at this point, some believe a total ban will not happen.
“They have [threatened to ban TikTok] every year since 2020 and have always found a loophole [to keep it running],” Pandey said.
Some students and many other Americans believe that the idea of a TikTok ban is for political leverage.
“I just really thought that it going down for [12] hours was propaganda,” Junior Ava Hensley said. “[I think it got banned] to make people like Trump more.”
Although many users are upset about the ban, Hensley has been able to see some benefits. For example, the ban can be helpful for those who want to take a break from or completely end their social media usage.
“I’ll download [TikTok] for a little bit, and then I’ll be losing hours of my life [scrolling]…and then I get rid of it, then I redownload,” Hensley said. Banning TikTok can help students like her end this back and forth by just getting rid of the choice to download altogether.
Although it is online for those who have the app, currently, Americans are unable to download TikTok after the short ban went into effect. Those who have deleted it are now out of luck, as it is no longer on app stores.
