It’s Sunday night, 10 p.m. The day is over, and people are getting ready for their nighttime routine, where they lay down and scroll social media until they’re tired. Instead, they’re met with a white box, reading: “Sorry, TikTok isn’t available right now.” This is what happened in January for over 170 million TikTok users in the United States. While the social media app has since gone back to being functional, TikTok’s future remains uncertain as the extension’s deadline, April 5, draws closer.

“I used TikTok but I deleted it after the ban,” Isabella Steil (9) said. “After that I had to go through a whole process to get it back.”

In April 2024, the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act was passed, which fines companies that store or share data from TikTok’s servers up $5,000 per person who’s accessed this data. Considering TikTok’s massive userbase, consisting of over 160 million users in the United States, a total of over $850 billion in fines could be expected to be spread across different giant tech companies such as Google, Apple, and Oracle, practically amounting to a ban on the app.

“I wouldn’t mind a ban on TikTok because it could benefit people who are easily distracted in school,” Owen Townsend (12) said. “But TikTok is a world-wide platform and the ban would hinder the communication younger people have with others outside the United States.”

While ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, argued against the bill, the Supreme Court ruled against them. United States companies were then given until Jan 17 to shut down all services related to TikTok, meaning Americans would lose access to all its internet-based features, like loading videos or even downloading the app. During midnight TikTok shutdown, but only a few hours later became functional again. The bill included the ability for the president to delay the ban to for up to 75 days while negotiations to sell the app to an American buyer are going on. According to CBS News, ByteDance has been adamant on not selling, meaning trouble for TikTok’s future after the extension ends.

“I’m against the ban,” Colin Beard (11) said. “I believe social media is a valuable area for spreading information”

While the ban has been framed as a measure to protect people’s private data, there are worries about freedom of speech that is guaranteed in the first amendment. According to Pew Research Center, about 40% of people aged 18-29 regularly get their news from TikTok. According to Vice, the hashtag “#freepalestine” had 25.5 billion views, while “#standwithisrael” had 440 million views. Meanwhile competitors like Facebook, which is made up of an older demographic, has been found by the Human Rights Watch to suppress peaceful pro-Palestine content. Since the ban extension, comments like “Free Palestine” get automatically deleted.

“During the cold war the United States was worried a lot about the ideals of the people being changed,” Beard said. “It makes a lot of sense from the government’s perspective.”

TikTok’s data collection policy is often scrutinized due to geopolitical tensions between the United States and China. According to Pew Research Center, over 80% of Americans feel they have little or no control over the data collected about them.

“To an extent I’m with it because I don’t think it’s the safest,” Steil said. “Some people with strong emotions are voicing themselves but I think they’re overreacting because people will just migrate to Instagram.”

Despite this, in the days leading up to TikTok’s ban, the Chinese lifestyle app, Xiaohongshu, also known as RedNote, had a massive influx of new American users. According to the China tech newspaper TechNode, over 700,000 new American users joined in just the week leading to the TikTok ban. While the app was completely in Chinese, and English-speaking users had to translate all text manually, only a week later RedNote updated the app into English and added a Chinese-to-English translate button.

“The ban won’t affect much because people will find other sources,” Beard said. “Censorship that the government tries to enact is worthless against the power that the people hold”

The deadline for TikTok being sold, and the ban’s delay ending, is April 5, 2025. If the app will remain banned remains to be seen, as while TikTok has been adamant that it won’t sell, the bill banning TikTok allows for the president to define what exactly divesting from China is defined as, which could potentially allow him to unban TikTok entirely based on how he defines it. The app remained off the Google and Apple app stores until Feb. 13, but has since been added back.