Masuk Free Press

On Wednesday, March 13, the House of Representatives passed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, more commonly known as the TikTok ban. The bill’s stated goal is to protect Americans from apps owned by adversarial countries, i.e. North Korea, China, Russia, and Iran. If enacted, TikTok would have six months to sell itself to any company based in a non-adversarial country or risk being banned from American devices and networks. President Biden has promised to sign the bill if it were to land on his desk, making the timeline for the bill shorter, assuming the Senate passes it as well. 

However, TikTok users at Masuk are concerned with violations of freedom of speech, government overreach and the state of TikTok alternatives. 

“I don’t think it’s a good thing because it gives the government too much power. I don’t think they should be banning apps, especially since it feels like an infringement on the First Amendment rights [and] free speech,” said senior Arvin Sarma.

Students at Masuk are mostly in agreement that banning TikTok would be a violation of their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and expression.

 Senior Ashwin Sarma said,“The problem with TikTok is that [the government doesn’t] have the ability to control what’s on TikTok, unlike Facebook. There’s been evidence that Facebook has been bought out to promote other political ideologies,” 

In general, the young adult audience is not in favor of government interference in the content they consume, and this could prove to be a flash point in the TikTok ban debate. In light of a TikTok ban, Instagram Reels surfaced as the next best short-form content platform that TikTok users would migrate to. Yet Masuk students are concerned with the moderation (or lack thereof) and culture of Instagram Reels.

“It seems like there’s a lot of people who use other platforms like Instagram Reels. However, the problem with Instagram Reels would be that they don’t have very good content moderation,” said Ashwin Sarma. “You can see their comment sections are full of lots of hatred. I believe that could negatively impact people, so people would be more violent towards each other.”

For reference, The Wall Street Journal reported that after using test accounts posing as adults and following pre-teen and teenage influencers, they were steadily suggested adult content and profiles that would lead to explicit content on Instagram reels. They also found that if they followed accounts that also followed similar accounts, they were suggested more adult content, and then content that contained children in exploitative circumstances. 

Although this experiment zoned in on one type of genre, students have also received offensive content of different types, with a particularly violent theme of fatal car crashes being frequently posted. 

“Definitely the car crashes, all that stuff. Those are bad because they don’t really take them down,” said senior Andrew Ronaghan.

With potentially weak content moderation, many students are worried about the negative environment and culture that Instagram Reels houses. 

But on the other hand, Masuk students do believe that there might be a benefit to banning TikTok in the U.S.

“I think if it were to get banned, it would be interesting to see. I want to see it just because it is funny. But I feel like it might actually be good because a lot of people spend [too much] time on TikTok. A lot of people waste their time. It’s too addictive. So it might actually be a good thing,” said Arvin Sarma.

Although students agree that TikTok’s alternatives are not in any state to take on TikTok’s current users, they reported that they would, at least temporarily, see positive lifestyle changes as a result of being freed from short-form content overconsumption. 

The Senate has yet to vote on the bill. It is unknown whether it will spend time in committees, or whether it will be passed the first time appearing on the floor. Current reports indicate that the Senate will have a harder time passing the bill as compared to the House of Representatives.

If the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act becomes written into law, the way we consume content will most definitely change, especially with the real possibility of a ban of TikTok, America’s fastest-growing social platform.