On Wednesday, March 15th, the Biden administration explicitly demanded the Chinese company ByteDance, owner of TikTok, to sell their stakes or face a possible national ban of the app in the U.S.

While this is the closest that the popular video app has been to an actual ban, it is not the app’s first time facing threats of banning.

TikTok has gone viral since the beginning of the pandemic. Since then, TikTok’s influence has extended beyond social media into popular culture and has become a virtual place for teens and young adults to gather and share information. While many social media apps have been accused of being addictive and disruptive to children’s development or spreading false information, the debate about banning TikTok has revolved around its threat to national security due to the company’s tie to China and the possibility of American users’ data being accessed by the ruling Chinese Communist Party. 

The Trump administration sought to undertake an executive order to ban the app on the grounds of security risks in 2020. Eventually, it fell short after a district judge found insufficient evidence of national security risk. However, with the rising anti-China sentiments in Washington and the recent Chinese spy balloon incidents, concerns around TikTok have resurged. On Tuesday, March 7th, a bipartisan group of senators introduced the Restricting the Emergence of Security Threats that Risk Information and Communications Technology Act, or RESTRICT Act, which would allow the federal government more power to regulate or even ban tech from countries that hold adversarial relationships to the U.S.

 “Today, the threat that everyone is talking about is TikTok, and how it could enable surveillance by the Chinese Communist Party, or facilitate the spread of malign influence campaigns in the U.S. Before TikTok, however, it was Huawei and ZTE, which threatened our nation’s telecommunications networks,” Sen. Mark Warner who introduced the bill said on Tuesday. “We need a comprehensive, risk-based approach that proactively tackles sources of potentially dangerous technology before they gain a foothold in America, so we aren’t playing Whac-A-Mole and scrambling to catch up once they’re already ubiquitous.”

Days before the Warner bill, the House Foreign Affairs Committee pushed The Deterring America’s Technological Adversaries Act, or DATA Act, which would also allow the Biden Administration to ban or sanction TikTok if it determines the app as a threat to national security. In addition, the Senate approved another measure last December to ban TikTok from all government devices.

However, because the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), has been dragging the negotiation with TikTok since 2019, some commenters have claimed that the Democrats are putting the interest of the Party before national security concerns due to the app’s potential of being an essential campaign asset for Democrat’s 2024 election.

Bradley Beychok, the co-founder of American Bridge 21st Century, an independent political committee that backs Democratic candidates, told the Wall Street Journal, “Right now TikTok can be a valuable weapon, especially since Republicans have run away from it for political reasons… You wouldn’t want a tool like that to be taken off the shelf.”

Other Democratic consultants have also admitted that younger people typically favor the Democratic by a wide margin. TikTok has been vital in reaching those voters as many consume TikTok content as a new source in addition to the entertainment it provides.

Whether President Biden’s latest announcement will affect any voter’s decision is uncertain. On the other hand, significant legal procedures and political ramifications will soon follow as millions of young American users may be affected by the potential ban.

In fact, many universities have banned TikTok on their wi-fi network following the measure of banning TikTok from government devices. However, TikTok frenzy students found ways around the block, such as using personal mobile data or VPN.

In an interview with BBC, a college student from the University of Oklahoma told the reporter, “I don’t want to negate a national security issue… but I just think people are like, ‘this sucks’ and then laugh about it,” he says. “They’re not taking it super, super seriously.”

Other students who feel more indifferent about the ban think that other social media apps have taken as much personal data from users as TikTok and are skeptical that data collected by one app can be more valuable than another if accessed.

“All social media apps and online services acquire user information and data; I don’t really think the information taken by TikTok will be so much more different from others. Even if China access the users’ data, how valuable can college students’ information really be?”

In addition, some students expressed that Biden’s action is unnecessary and purely an act against China. A student from Boston who do not use TikTok told Sampan, “I believe this is just another event showcasing U.S. competition with China because there is no evidence that China is taking U.S. users’ data. They want to ban TikTok now, will they be banning more foreign apps in the future? The Biden administration should have more important things it could be focusing on.”

Similarly, Chinese officials have also voiced that the U.S. is “unreasonably suppressing” Chinese social media apps and is spreading “false information” regarding Chinese data security measures.

“The U.S. side has so far failed to produce evidence that Tik Tok threatens U.S. national security,” China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Wang Wenbin said at a regular press briefing.

The debate around banning TikTok has also raised questions regarding First Amendment rights, as millions of American TikTok users may no longer be able to choose their way of communication freely.

For example, the ACLU has openly condemned the DATA Act for violating the First Amendment by claiming it could set a dangerous precedent that may endanger more foreign technologies and businesses.

In addition, TikTok has repeatedly denied that the company has been accessing U.S. user data in China. In the past three years of negotiation with CIFUS to stay operational in the U.S., TikTok has been crafting Project Texas. This $1.5 billion reconstructing proposal involves working with the U.S. tech giant Oracle to store all U.S. user data and allowing the company to audit its content moderation policies and algorithm. However, the new banning announcement will effectively kill the proposal.

Nonetheless, TikTok’s spokesperson Brooke Oberwetter claimed that the company would continue Project Texas and announced another security initiative Project Clover in Europe.

In response to the new direction from CIFUS, TikTok expressed strong disappointment. 

 “If protecting national security is the objective, divestment doesn’t solve the problem: A change in ownership would not impose any new restrictions on data flows or access,” said a TikTok spokesperson. “The best way to address concerns about national security is with the transparent, U.S.-based protection of U.S. user data and systems, with robust third-party monitoring, vetting and verification, which we are already implementing.”

In the very short term, it is highly unlikely that TikTok will be banned overnight due to Biden’s decision. However, the Federal officials are taking actions for the ban to take place and TikTok, or the Chinese government may be involved in legal battles to prevent the ban from happening. If the ban were to take place, other major social media companies such as Facebook or Twitter will become the greatest beneficiary, attracting millions of displaced TikTok users in the U.S. to their platforms.