It seems America may have finally pushed its people to the brink, as our government snatches away one of the last remaining good things in our lives. TikTok may officially be on its way out, and frequent users on the app are on the verge of a full-blown revolution.
A combination of Donald Trump’s presidential victory, Luigi Mangione’s alleged slaying of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, and the removal of TikTok is starting to quietly radicalize America’s youth, and all that ire is directed at our own government. Exhausted with the wealth gap, infuriated at the slow removal of our rights, and emboldened by Luigi’s harsh action, an increasing number of young people are fed up with the state of the world, and without TikTok to distract them, all those words may boil over into action in the coming months.
Before all that can happen, however, the government has to actually take the app away. For now, all those outraged young people are still glued to their phones, enjoying that delightful TikTok content, but as soon as Jan. 19, the app could be a thing of the past. It’s still up in the air exactly how the ban will take effect, but unless something major changes — and soon — we’re officially enjoying TikTok’s final days.
How will the TikTok ban be enforced?
A major question that’s occupied TikTokers’ attention of late is how a ban would actually work. Its not like the government can send people to our homes, to confiscate our phones and remove the app, so how will they stop more than 170 million state-side users from accessing their favorite content?
There are sure to be a few steps, and the exact process remains unclear — particularly since the government seems to be regretting its decision of late — but it does seem a full TikTok blackout is well within the government’s power. Experts speaking to Reuters outlined that, in order to make the ban work, the law targets “a wide swath of U.S.-based partners that help bring TikTok to users, rendering most easy workarounds such as using a virtual private network or changing a phone’s country settings moot or difficult to use.”
To start, TikTok plans to shut down service once the ban takes effect, but governmental figures are exploring options to provide access beyond the ban. Despite this, users attempting to access the app may be redirected to a message about the new law, along with an invitation to download their personal data. That could at least save all those pristine Toks individual users have dreamed up over the years.
No new videos will be able to upload from state-side users, which will kneecap the app instantaneously, and without updates and glitch fixes the app will become all but impossible to use within a short period. Most importantly, U.S.-based TikTok data is all hosted by servers owned by Oracle, and if the company ceases those operations, TikTok in America will be no more.
There’s plenty more that keeps the TikTok machine running, including dozens of various service providers that deliver content to users, and there’s no way they’ll all cease operations at once, but even for those that avoid the redirect or a full blackout, TikTok will be a different beast the moment the ban goes into effect. As one expert brutally put it, “Americans may only be able to watch as their app rots.”
There are still workarounds, including a VPN (virtual private network), but even these may be hard to employ. Thanks to geolocation data, you’d have to switch over every aspect of your phone — including payment methods — to the country you’re supposedly based out of, which for most would make a second phone the easier option. And that is an option, but only for the lucky few willing and able to add an additional phone to their already-expensive plans.
A new phone comes with its own hurdles, including that aforementioned geolocation. If you don’t already have the app downloaded — which you wouldn’t on a fresh phone — you’d have to travel to the country you’re claiming to be based out of (say Canada) in order to download the app. All of which makes a workaround extremely challenging, and quite unreasonable for the average user.
The chances of TikTok sticking around aren’t quite zero, but with the Supreme Court’s Jan. 17 uphold of the ban, we’re left with very few options. It’s clear the U.S. government was angling for an American investor to step in and save the day, and now that an actual ban is looming, they’re panicking nearly as much as the TikTok user base. They don’t want TikTok to disappear — it would be bad for morale, for the economy, and for the public at large — but they want better control over what we see, and how we see it. Now that those government officials have been backed into the same corner as the rest of us, they’re hunting for ways around their own rulings, but without a Supreme Court save, the end may truly be nigh.
