My favourite humble-brag is that I haven’t used TikTok in over three years. Sure, I spent most of high school ‘brainrotting’ away on the app like everyone else, but in a rare moment of self-awareness, I deleted it — and I have been coasting on that decision ever since.
TikTok ate up my screen time with choreographed dances, comedic skits, and pseudo-intellectual rants — the last of which I now get plenty of in my political science courses. So when I heard about the US government’s move to potentially ban the app, I was intrigued.
On the surface, banning an app notorious for spreading misinformation, leaking data, and ruining the attention spans of an entire generation seemed logical. But the more I thought about it, the more I began to see TikTok in a different light.
As chaotic as it is, TikTok feels undeniably democratic in a way few social media platforms are. It may be a bold claim, but it’s hard to ignore the app’s role in facilitating global dialogues and amplifying marginalized voices.
Social media and activism
Sociologist Michael Dahlberg-Grundberg’s 2016 study on the role of digital media in facilitating transnational activism — activism that transcends borders — highlights how platforms like TikTok empower social movements by acting as a “connective tissue” between local and global activist groups.
This border-transcending solidarity allows grassroots mobilization to flourish across national divides. TikTok’s ability to circumvent the boundaries of traditional journalism channels gives diverse voices wider reach, free from the gatekeeping and biases that often shape mainstream media.
TikTok has become a platform where grassroots activism and independent journalism thrive in ways traditional media platforms often can’t replicate. While traditional outlets are constrained by corporate interests and government influence, TikTok’s algorithm — which elevates content based on user engagement rather than follower count — allows marginalized voices to reach wider audiences.
Yet, this structure is both a strength and a weakness of social media activism. The same algorithms that amplify diverse perspectives can also spread misinformation at an alarming rate. The echochamber of TikTok’s ‘For You Page’ creates a feedback loop that gives disproportionately higher visibility to harmful content.
A key example of TikTok’s algorithmic flaws is its popularization of alt-right ideological pipelines. These pipelines gradually increase user exposure to harmful right-wing content, starting with seemingly harmless content like motivational fitness tips and progressing toward misogynistic rhetoric.
Yet this paradox is also what makes TikTok uniquely democratic. Alongside harmful alt-right political rhetoric, positive grassroots movements have gained traction on the platform. TikTok’s digital popularization of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020 — and more recently, the Palestinian liberation movement — shows how the app’s algorithm can amplify underrepresented voices and issues that traditional media often overlook.
TikTok gives anyone with a smart device and internet connection the power to participate in global dialogue. Whether for better or worse, that power belongs to everyone — but what would we lose if it were taken away?
The politics of TikTok bans are deeper than data
Despite TikTok’s popularity, concerns about users’ data security and the potential influence by the Chinese government sparked debates about banning the app in the US. These concerns led to a temporary nation-wide ban in January.
Proponents of the ban argue that because TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, is subject to Chinese data sovereignty laws, it is compelled to share sensitive data on US users with the Chinese government. In 2022, ByteDance admitted that employees had improperly accessed the data of two journalists in the US and UK, further fuelling skepticism about TikTok’s and ByteDance’s data practices.
But I see a double standard in digital media regulation when it comes to non-US-owned platforms. The 2022 Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data scandal exposed Facebook’s unauthorized harvesting of millions of users’ personal information, yet there were no substantial calls for a ban on Facebook.
TikTok’s rise as a social and digital media giant has disrupted the dominance of US-owned platforms like Facebook, Meta, and Google, signalling a shift away from the US dominance in the digital space. As I see it, US critics of TikTok’s data policies are more concerned with preserving American control over social media than with the purported threats of ‘ambiguous’ data policies.
Social media bans signal an autocratic tone while pushing users to new spaces and circumventing oversight. While TikTok was temporarily banned in the US, users quickly and discreetly used Virtual Private Networks to stay active on the app. Ironically, many users also migrated to Rednote: a Chinese-owned platform with nearly identical form and functionality to TikTok.
The bigger picture
Banning popular social media apps like TikTok sets a dangerous precedent, enabling governments to manipulate digital sovereignty for their own interests. By framing censorship and political agendas as necessary citizen protection, governments can undermine the efforts made on these platforms to advance social and political activism.
TikTok’s unique role as a non-traditional information medium has made it more democratic and accessible for users — students, influencers, and activists alike. The beneficial aspects of social media activism outweigh insufficiently founded claims of data security breaches and foreign intervention, and must not be decentered when we consider the importance of platforms like TikTok.
Druphadi Sen is a third-year student at University College studying cell and molecular biology, immunology, and English. They are the Managing Editor of Acta Victoriana and Politics Co-Editor of The Gargoyle.
