Students react to TikTok’s time out
On Saturday night, hours before the U.S. ban on TikTok was supposed to go into effect, an unexpected message was displayed on millions of devices across America. Then, screens went dark.
“Sorry, TikTok isn’t available right now,” the message read. “We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office. Please stay tuned!”
A few hours later, early on Sunday morning, TikTok’s services suddenly came back on with a new message welcoming users back to the app and thanking President Donald Trump for his promise to suspend the ban after his inauguration.
For Ricardo Rivera, a Brown College junior, TikTok’s revival was great news.
“I may have been the first one back on the platform,” Rivera said. “I saw a Tweet that they were unbanning it, so I was refreshing it every few minutes to see how to get back on.”
Rivera is one of many Rice students who use TikTok to keep up with friends and for entertainment.
In addition to dance routines and comedy skits, some users, like MyCo Le, see TikTok as a way of learning about what’s happening in the world.
“I do get a lot of my information from there, but I know to be wary of what I consume on TikTok, because obviously you can’t believe everything that you see online,” Le, a Baker College senior, said. “I probably wouldn’t have even known it was going to get banned if I didn’t even see it on TikTok.”
Instagram has Reels, YouTube has Shorts and Snapchat has Spotlight, but Martel College sophomore Audrey Witherspoon said none of TikTok’s competitors really measure up.
Editor’s Note: Audrey Witherspoon is the Thresher’s distribution and office managers.
“TikTok allows for people to post things without social stigma,” Witherspoon said. “I would never post something onto Reels because everyone I know follows me.”
“TikTok has a really great algorithm … but Reels doesn’t have an algorithm that makes me want to stay on it for longer,” Witherspoon continued.
Priya Armour, a Sid Richardson College junior, creates college lifestyle videos that have amassed over 30 million views and garnered her over 300,000 followers on TikTok.
Much of Armour’s content is about her life as a pre-med student at Rice, and she often makes videos giving advice to prospective students applying to college.
“Most of the videos I make come from direct requests that people send me,” Armour said. “I’ve had a lot of people text me, like incoming freshmen, on Instagram or TikTok and say, ‘You’re the reason I applied to Rice’ and ‘I got in, and you’re the reason I’m coming to Rice.’”
As for many content creators with large followings on the app, TikTok is a source of income for Armour, who earns commission from an Amazon Storefront linked on her account page. She said the ban could prove harmful to many influencers’ incomes and careers.
“The people who are enforcing this ban, I don’t know if they’re thinking about the livelihoods of a lot of people who utilize TikTok,” Armour said. “TikTok has been crazy for making money in general, and I feel like a lot of people in the U.S., a lot of influencers, get their livelihood off of that app.”
Evan Davis, a Sid Richardson sophomore, also touted the app’s economic benefits and raised concerns about free speech.
“In the interest of having a free market and multiple different avenues of free speech, it’s always nice to have more options,” Davis said. “If [TikTok] wasn’t a good option, people wouldn’t use it.”
Senators Chuck Schumer and Tom Cotton first raised concerns about TikTok in a 2019 letter urging the acting director of national intelligence to “conduct an assessment of the national security risks posed by TikTok and other China-based content platforms operating in the U.S.” and calling TikTok a “potential counterintelligence threat we cannot ignore.” Donald Trump attempted to ban the app in 2020, although his ban ultimately failed.
In 2023, following an investigation by the Department of Justice into ByteDance’s surveillance of American journalists, then-U.S. President Joe Biden urged Congress to pass legislation giving the U.S. government more authority to police against possible security threats posed by TikTok and other apps. In April 2024, Biden signed a bill into law forcing ByteDance to sell TikTok within 270 days or have it banned in the U.S.
The ban, upheld by a recent Supreme Court decision, threatens the imposition of civil penalties on Apple and Google app stores if they continue to distribute or update TikTok, as well as internet hosting companies if they keep the app running. The law did not, however, require that TikTok immediately shut down its services for users with the app already installed.
Rice computer science professor Moshe Vardi believes the Chinese government has access to user data via TikTok’s parent company ByteDance, he said. Information about users’ political preferences, location and demographics could be harnessed to target polarizing misinformation at individuals across the country.
“You and I are living a different reality. I live in the reality that the internet decides to show me. You live in the reality that the internet decides to show you … We can see something completely different,” Vardi said.
“We trust the Chinese [government] with our very intimate data. That’s one issue. But also the other side is, can they use it to influence?” Vardi continued. “If they can undermine our democracy, it’s something we should definitely be concerned about.”
Armour said she is not worried about data security on TikTok.
“I post content for a living,” Armour said. “If you want my information, that’s fine with me.”
She’s not sure the ban will stay in place for long, but if it does, she and many other influencers already have another place to go. RedNote, an Instagram-like social media app popular in China, recently moved to the No. 1 place on the Apple app store after over 700,000 users flocked to the app in preparation for the ban.
“If TikTok goes away, I’m already on RedNote, and most of my favorite creators are already on there, so I’ll just keep scrolling on,” Armour said.
Vardi said he isn’t confident the ban will do much to prevent the most dedicated users from finding their way back on the app.
“Exactly how do you ban TikTok?” Vardi said. “I have colleagues in China … They are using Facebook because they’re using VPN to tunnel under the Chinese internet wall … TikTok can be more subversive.”
Some students said they look forward to a break from TikTok’s addictive algorithm and to the time they will get back after the ban is put in place.
“Since the semester started, I needed to get on less social media,” Davis said. “If it gets banned, I’ll just cool down for a bit.”
“I feel like ridding my life of TikTok might be good for my productivity,” Le said.
Vardi said the ban sheds light on privacy issues within the U.S. in addition to the national security threat posed from abroad. The U.S. is different from China in that the government does not exercise total control over social media companies, but a lack of legislative government regulation surrounding privacy rights is something to worry about.
“One of the things that we have not done in this country is really deal with the heart of the issue, with privacy,” Vardi said. “It’s a jungle out there. We have no laws to protect our data.”
“It’s time to regulate social media,” Vardi continued. “TikTok is just an easy case.”
More from The Rice Thresher
Students from Los Angeles process wildfires, destruction and rebuilding
Wren Kawamura woke up at approximately 5 a.m on Jan. 8 to a loud, piercing, emergency alert. Her family has lived in La Cañada, Calif., for over a decade. They were in the path of the Eaton fire, one of four wildfires in the Los Angeles area killing over 27 people over the last week, although the official death toll is unknown.
Saba Feleke makes art you can’t scroll past
Outside Saba Feleke’s senior art studio, a large scroll painting hangs on the wall bearing the statement: “My 5-year plan is that a Bible-level miracle will happen.” The painting is a recreation of a screenshot of a post on Feleke’s Instagram, which itself is a screenshot of a Twitter post — only much larger, they said. It is part of a series of paintings created during Feleke’s summer residency at Project Row Houses through the Floyd Newsum Summer Studios Program.
Electives to fill your final credit hours
No matter how long you spend perfecting your schedule, the urge to drop a class after syllabus week is inevitable. Whether you’re looking to drop the 8 a.m. that seemed like a good idea or the class with mandatory attendance, consider these three credit-hour electives with open spots to complete your schedule.
Please note All comments are eligible for publication by The Rice Thresher.