Why The TikTok Ban Should Be A Wake-Up Call.

A platform to engage, have fun, dance, socialise, monetise and more. Exposure to billions until you’re disconnected. How much should we invest in an experimental, orchestrated, digitalised life only for it to be abruptly revoked?

A third of U.S. adults used TikTok (past tense). I’ve heard through the grapevine that President-elect Trump, is working to reinstate TikTok to its U.S. users with one rule standing in its way; the Chinese gold share structure. In other words, if a company has a “golden share structure ” it means that if one of the shareholders is Xi Jinping, the head of the Chinese Communist Party, he essentially has a pivotal role in your TikTok life and is one of the fundamental decision makers. With that level of power, authority and accessibility it makes you wonder who has your best interests at heart and if this is a security risk as America claims. Data, live location, access to personal information from 3rd party apps and more. If you were to prioritise your country’s welfare, safety and position in the world, what would you choose?

Many countries have imposed past or ongoing restrictions on the short-form video-hosting service TikTok. Bans from government devices usually stem from national security concerns over potential access of data by the Chinese government. Other bans have recognised children’s well-being and offensive content such as pornography. So questions have loomed over TikTok’s fate due to a range of issues.

In addition to this millennial/gen z debacle, this restriction coincides other momental milestones taking place as we speak. Events that occurred alongside this on 19 January 2025 was phase one of the ceasefire Israel-Hamas, which also came into fruition 24 hours before President-elect Donald Trump’s second inauguration. Previously, he’s made his stance on these conflicts clear, almost issuing a verbal warning should tensions not lesson by the time he takes office. It makes me hypothesise if these are isolated incidents, possibly a coincidence or part of a larger agenda. Roughly, almost 50,000 lives have been lost in this travesty, as Joe Biden claims the plan accepted was precisely the same he had proposed back in May. The thousands that have been killed in that timeframe for an identical ceasefire plan to be fast-tracked, agreed and accepted in-sync with major events could seem either coincidental again, or calculated. 

Meta announced recently that they would censor fact-checking, dramatically reducing their third-party programmes overseeing this. Meta has also decided to loosen their hate-speech restrictions, to encourage more free speech without limitations, revealed one to two weeks prior to Trump’s inauguration. Reasons behind the sudden 180 change, remain unknown.

Security and your country’s best interests should be priority. It’s perplexing why the UK has no plans to follow U.S. and ban TikTok. One of the most influential countries in the world, not making an impression on its allies may look problematic or possibly the grounds for this ban might seem insignificant to onlookers.

Governments will never be fully transparent with you and I. It comes with the territory. But the more they curb how people lead their lives, it’s natural to speculate the motives behind operations taking place simultaneously.

What do you think? Do you agree with the TikTok ban in the U.S.? Do you think there are security risks? Are these events coinciding simply by chance? Comment below!