Kacey Miller

A group of students sit with their phones in hand, TikTok’s scrolling feed illuminating their faces. In an executive order signed on Jan. 20, United States President Donald Trump ordered the Department of Justice to refrain from enforcing an Act to control foreign-owned apps, such as TikTok, for 75 days. “Americans deserve to see our exciting Inauguration, as well as other events and conversations,” Trump said in a Truth Social post. “Without U.S. approval, there is no TikTok. With our approval, it is worth hundreds of billions of dollars – maybe trillions.”

In an executive order signed on Jan. 20, United States President Donald Trump ordered the Department of Justice to refrain from enforcing an Act to control foreign-owned apps, such as TikTok, for 75 days. Although Trump’s authority in making the order is unclear and sparking legal debate, it has reopened TikTok for the 170 million American users after a few hours of being shut down.

U.S. companies working with TikTok were released from potential liabilities in the order, with Trump “asking companies not to let TikTok stay dark” in a Truth Social post on Sunday. After advocating for a ban of TikTok in 2019 during his first term in office, Trump is now taking a different approach to the popular app and requesting 50% ownership of TikTok in a joint venture.

“Americans deserve to see our exciting Inauguration, as well as other events and conversations,” Trump said in a Truth Social post. “Without U.S. approval, there is no TikTok. With our approval, it is worth hundreds of billions of dollars – maybe trillions. An executive order [can] extend the period of time before the law’s prohibitions take effect, so that we can make a deal to protect our national security.”

The Act Trump is delaying, passed in April of 2024, to protect Americans from national security threats was named the “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act.” It names ByteDance Ltd., the company behind TikTok, as a service provider that threatens national security.

“There’s a Chinese company collecting American data, and people have consented to it,” junior Michael Moracchi said. “It’s fine that American companies [collect data], but the second a Chinese company does it, everybody loses their minds. We really need to take a stance. It can either be nobody gets our data or everybody has our data if we consent to it. It can’t just be this pick and choose, this kind of hypocrisy.”

During the 12 hours that TikTok was banned for Americans, junior Maddie Pressler said she did not know what to do with her free time, as she spends 1-2 hours a day on the app.

“I think, for my everyday life, [a ban of TikTok] would affect me because I don’t know what to do otherwise,” Pressler said. “TikTok is how I get a lot of my news from around the world. Hopefully we can try and cancel out some issues that people have concerns about. For people who are using TikTok for the wrong reasons, I have concerns, but for the people who aren’t doing anything wrong, I think they should be able to keep it.”

Some students, such as junior Addie LoSurdo, are not allowed to download or use TikTok. LoSurdo’s parents restrict her from using any application owned by a Chinese company, such as CapCut, which, along with TikTok, is no longer available to Apple product users on the App Store.

“The people that own [TikTok] are stealing your data and stealing everything about you,” LoSurdo said. “I feel okay when it’s America doing that, because it’s my country, and I trust my country. My country has done good things. But when it’s China, I don’t feel comfortable. So let’s just delete TikTok, there’s Instagram Reels, the same thing, but done by America, so I feel safer.”

After getting permission from her parents to download Instagram two weeks ago, LoSurdo now uses Instagram Reels along with YouTube Shorts to view short-form content online.

“My friends make fun of me for liking YouTube Shorts, but like, what are you gonna do now, dude?” LoSurdo said. “It’s honestly a good thing, if TikTok is getting banned. This generation of kids is going on a downward spiral because people are so reliant on social media and the media itself. That’s going to be a problem for college, the workforce and life. It’s a good idea to start cutting down on those things.”

LoSurdo got her first phone during her freshman year. Her parents put controls on her screen time and media she views to prevent exposure to inappropriate material.

“My parents also know me very well, and they don’t believe in social media for my age,” LoSurdo said. “I’m still developing, I’m still growing, I’m still learning things. I think I’m really grateful for not being allowed [to download TikTok] because a lot of the people I know are constantly on it. It’s just a waste of time. You’re not gaining anything out of it, truly. People say you’re learning all these crafts and all these tricks, but honestly, none of that stuff is really a need-to-know.”

Besides using TikTok for news or entertainment, students create videos on TikTok that they can post or keep private. Freshman Evelyn Perez saves most of the TikToks she films to her drafts, where no one but her can view them.

“TikTok shouldn’t be banned because many people in the world use it,” Perez said. “It should be left open to Americans. We’ve been using it since 201[6], so it should just stay open for students.”

Moracchi said he did not care whether TikTok itself is ever banned, but rather about the principle behind any action taken against the app.

“If the ban is part of a larger movement to go ahead and crack down on social media collecting people’s information, because that’s highly intrusive and I’m really against that, then I’m for it,” Moracchi said. “But if [the potential ban] is just this kind of power move to go ahead and show China that we don’t actually have a problem with what they’re doing, we just have a problem that they’re not American while doing it, I think that’s hypocritical and just makes us all look very petty.”