Tiktok, the youth’s favorite app, may disappear.
Indeed, the US Congress decided that Tiktok must be banned or sold within a deadline. President Joe Biden is expected to sign the legislation later Wednesday.
If the ban goes ahead, the EU might follow, says Petteri Järvinen. He is an expert in the digital world and a non-fiction writer.
A ban would have enormous consequences in the everyday lives of young people. For example, young people in the United States spend an average of two hours a day on Tiktok.
The reason Americans want to ban Tiktok is because Tiktok is owned by a Chinese company. US lawmakers say Chinese ownership is a threat to national security. According to lawmakers, China could use the app to spy on Americans and influence opinion.
Tiktok could therefore be banned in Finland before long, and that would upset high school students Vainö Rönkköa18.
– Tiktok has become such a big part of my everyday life that it would leave a certain kind of notch in my everyday life, Rönkkö reasons.
A high school student is on the same lines Laura Salomeri, 19.
– I really like Tiktok as an application. Then I would probably look for the same type of content on Instagram or Snapchat, for example, but I don’t think they would work as well, says Salomeri.
Both use Tiktok daily, Rönkkö for several hours and Salomerik for at least an hour.
Instead, someone who attends a vocational school Kaisla Kanervaa, 19, a ban would not hurt. His favorite social media is Instagram.
Kanervakin still spends hours on Tiktok almost every day. Why?
– That’s a really good question, Kanerva laughs.
– Tiktok takes your thoughts elsewhere and gives you an excuse not to do things that should be done.
Unelmasome is a safer Tiktok
Kanerva would especially miss security and a sense of community in a perfect society.
– It could genuinely take care of users’ health. It could include, for example, regular reminders that it’s time to put the phone away.
In addition, social media could have like-minded communities where the rules of equality are truly internalized, Kanerva envisions.
Rönkkö and Salomeri also need screen time restrictions.
Their perfect social media would be very video driven, similar to Tiktok.
Salomeri also considers it important to be able to have a conversation and follow the opinions of others. But for the discussion, he would like stricter rules than in Tiktok.
– I have noticed that the discussion in the comments on Suomi-Tiktok is really irrelevant. Almost every Tiktok that gets even a little bit more views is barking at looks. It’s really sad, Salomeri says.
However, the young people interviewed by have not worried much about Tiktok’s Chinese ownership, at least in terms of their own data protection.
– I’ve gone a bit with the mentality that my information is surely already distributed in so many places that one Tiktok app won’t ruin my world in that regard, Rönkkö says.
Still, Rönkö’s Tiktok would rather be under non-Chinese ownership.
Tiktok makes it possible to influence opinion
Tiktok has hundreds of millions of users in the US and Europe. That gives the app a lot of power that China could use for nefarious purposes if it wanted to.
There is growing concern about this in Western countries. In the recently published Sotilasaikauslehti by the Officers’ Association Katleena Kortesuo write:
“Tiktok is an effective and dangerous channel for cyber warfare, information warfare and psychological operations.”
Kortesuo is a non-fiction writer and communication expert.
The threats are therefore not only related to data protection, such as spying on users.
The owner of Tiktok’s algorithm also has great power to influence opinions, and it cannot be controlled anywhere, notes non-fiction writer Järvinen.
– Of course, it also applies to Western companies, but we have some kind of visibility with them, and they have some kind of Western value base. Tiktok is from a different culture.
Järvinen is cautiously positive about Tiktok’s ban, even though he generally ignores bans.
– It’s a different matter, on what grounds the United States bans the application, and whether it even succeeds. Yes, it violates the freedom of competition, which has been quite a sacred thing in the West.
How could the ban proceed?
Järvinen considers freedom of competition to be the most difficult issue. Banning just one social media company without concrete evidence of, for example, violations of the law is difficult.
Now the basis is the company’s Chinese ownership.
Järvinen wonders whether the arguments would go through in the EU or whether national security could be invoked here too without concrete evidence.
On the other hand, he reminds that after the start of the war in Ukraine, the EU banned the operation of the Russian RT channel in the EU region and even obliged operators to prevent it from being viewed online.
– This was a significant matter that went through without a public discussion: the EU censors a website, let alone a state news outlet.
In the past, the EU also recommended its member states to give up network equipment from China’s Huawei for security reasons, and many did so.
However, a total Tiktok ban would be a much more drastic measure, says Järvinen.
He finds it interesting that the United States is now the first to decide on banning Tiktok. Until now, the EU has been a pioneer in the regulation of technology companies, and in the US at least a few states have followed suit.
There will be long legal battles
Tiktok itself has opposed the ban citing freedom of speech, and some US lawmakers have also been concerned about it.
At the state level, similar ban attempts have failed in the courts specifically for free speech reasons.
Tiktok has already announced that it will start a legal battle.
However, Järvinen considers the importance of the ban for freedom of speech to be minor.
– Citizens’ freedom of speech will probably not suffer if one of the many social media applications is banned.
Young people would probably switch to other social media services, which have already become more like Tiktok.
Bytedance, the company that owns Tiktok, would also have the option to sell the app within the deadline set by the United States.
However, finding a buyer is difficult.
Natural buyers would be large technology companies such as Meta, Google or Microsoft. However, the Anti-Competition Act could prevent deals. The purpose of the law is to limit the expansion of technology companies.
The sale would also require approval from the Chinese government, which has previously said it opposes forced sales.
Journalist Antti Kurra explains in a video how the Tiktok ban in the United States could proceed.