The social media platform TikTok fought in the U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit, against a federal ban that is set to take place on Jan. 19. The ban would prohibit app stores across the U.S. from carrying or advertising the app.
The only way TikTok can counter the ban is if the company can convince the federal court to reverse the bill. The court date took place Sep. 16, but Dec. 6 marks when the court will have to release their ruling.
“There’s a lot of innocent youth using it, and people are super prone to being influenced,” junior communications student John Love said. “It is dangerous. There’s so many, like, all the videos and so many different things being thrown at you. So many different ideas being thrown at you at the same time. ”
TikTok is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance and has been accused by several political figures throughout the last few years of having too much power over Americans using the app. One of the biggest concerns raised was about political sway and Chinese government control over what is being shown.
Ava Martucci, a senior criminology student with a minor in psychology, believes the ban isn’t going to happen.
“They’ve been saying they’re gonna ban it for like four years and they’ve never been able to ban it. We’ve all thought it was gonna be banned,” she said. “I get like, their reasoning behind it, but I just dont think it’s fair. It’s obviously, like, a form of speech.”
Another student, Alyssa Hardy, a sophomore psychology major, said she thinks the court will backpedal the ban.
“I feel like the chances might be kind of low, since they have been talking about it for so long now. But also, anything’s a possibility,” she said.
Different from Martucci’s and Hardy’s beliefs, Love feels the court won’t block the bill.
“If it’s political, then yeah, it’ll probably be banned,” he said.
There is still hope for TikTok users. The House of Representatives said they would not ban the site, if ByteDance sold the app to a U.S. company. ByteDance seems sure of their refusal to sell, but only time will tell as the decision date looms closer.
Monday marked the last court date set to hear out the app’s prosecution and defense.
Three judges listened to each side and will be the deciding factor for the Dec. 6 ruling.
Aryn Kauble is a reporter. Contact him at [email protected].