Congress voted to ban TikTok in America after concerns over the influential platform being run by Chinese company ByteDance.
As the TikTok ban comes underway in Congress, the internet could look quite different.
Congress voted to ban TikTok in America on Saturday after concerns over the influential platform being run by Chinese company ByteDance. Lawmakers in both state and federal governments have been pushing to get rid of the platform due to national security reasons before the vote despite pushback by free speech advocates.
Congress gave ByteDance nine months to provide users time to export their information from the app, but after that, the Chinese company will need to sell the app to another company or else lose all American users and creators.
„It is unfortunate that the House of Representatives is using the cover of important foreign and humanitarian assistance to once again jam through a ban bill that would trample the free speech rights of 170 million Americans, devastate 7 million businesses, and shutter a platform that contributes $24 billion to the U.S. economy, annually,“ TikTok previously said on X (formerly Twitter).
The vote for the ban now has many questioning how the Internet will adapt as the site disappears in the United States.
„Instagram would see a huge boom if there were a TikTok ban, as would other sites,“ Nicholas Kardaras, a psychologist and expert in digital addiction, told Newsweek. „Creators are, if nothing else, creative and resourceful.“
Instagram, which is owned by Meta (formerly Facebook), is the most popular platform that also offers a viral video tool through Reels. YouTube could also take up a substantial portion of the demand for TikTok.
But, according to Oxford Internet Governance and Regulation Professor Viktor Mayer-Schonberger, it might not be all bad for Americans who love engaging with the widespread social media platform.
