Arjun Manjunath has been making content on TikTok since 2020, using the income he has made from the app’s Creator Fund to support his tuition and pay his rent. With the recent uncertainty surrounding the app’s future, Manjunath said, “the switch to other apps feels bittersweet.”
“I’m taking this ban very close to heart,” Manjunath, a senior marketing major, said. “[TikTok] is literally my career.”
On Jan. 20, President Donald Trump signed an executive order pausing the ban on TikTok for 75 days. Following a 14-hour blackout, professors and student content creators spoke about the ban’s social and personal implications.
Michael Madison, a Pitt law professor, said TikTok is “unusually powerful because of its widespread use, especially by younger generations.” He described how the Supreme Court settled this case because of concern for national security.
“There is a concern that ByteDance is extracting user data from TikTok in the U.S.,” Madison said, “and then filtering the data back to China, where presumably it would be shared with the Chinese government.”
The bipartisan law argues that ByteDance could collect data on American users through the app and that the Chinese government could control what content viewers see to influence public opinion. While Congress is concerned about national security, the extent to which TikTok is a national security threat is unclear. TikTok currently claims it has never shared user data with the Chinese government.
Brenton Malin, a communications professor at Pitt, said the U.S. government could also potentially be worried about the effects of social media on younger generations.
“I think TikTok in the U.S. is an easier target than some of the other social media companies because of its associations with China,” Malin said. “It’s about national security and protecting the U.S. from Chinese influence.”
Despite ByteDance claiming that banning TikTok violated the First Amendment, the Supreme Court ruled to keep the ban in place on Jan. 17. Madison said that the government can legally interfere with free speech with “an extraordinarily good reason.”
“The First Amendment does not say no limitations on free speech may happen at all,” Madison said. “The Supreme Court is trying to balance national security with freedom of expression.”
For 14 hours on Jan. 18 and 19, American users were unable to access the TikTok app until it returned with a message reading “Thanks for your patience and support. As a result of President Trump’s efforts, TikTok is back in the U.S.! You can continue to create, share, and discover all the things you love on TikTok.” As of Jan. 20, American users can access TikTok normally, with no apparent issues, though the app is still not available for download on the Google and Apple app stores. Users also can’t update the app or make in-app purchases.
President Donald Trump has been outspoken about this ban, claiming he will “save TikTok.” As president in 2020, Trump called for shutting down TikTok because he was concerned about the app’s national security impacts.
Madison said Trump does not have the legal power to save TikTok indefinitely.
“The President doesn’t have the omnipotent power to build, rescue or change things that they don’t like,” Madison said. Unless ByteDance decides to sell to an American company, the ban will stay in effect.
With the results of the ban starting to take effect, content creators on campus like Manjunath are unsure of what’s next. He said he has used the content-creating experience he got using TikTok to start a career as a content creator, working with the University to make content and interning at TikTok’s New York headquarters.
“Those opportunities wouldn’t be possible if it wasn’t for social media,” Manjunath said. “I’m fortunate enough to have a social media following on other platforms.”
While Manjunath plans to continue his online career on sites such as Instagram and YouTube, other creators such as Cat Flood, a graduate student and former Pitt volleyball player, aren’t sure what’s next for them on social media.
“I’m having a hard time believing that they’re taking the whole app down,” Flood said.
Flood gained 49,000 followers after she started making dance videos with her teammates at the start of Pitt’s women’s volleyball season.
“Honestly, I didn’t even expect any of [my videos] to blow up in the first place,” Flood said. “I’m known as ‘the Pitt volleyball player’ online and I’m pretty much done with my last season. So I don’t really know what’s going to happen in terms of my following. But if there’s an opportunity for me to get paid for posting stuff on other apps, then that’s great.”
Although some TikTok users may turn to other social media apps with short-form videos, Pitt communications professor Samuel Woolley argues that “there is no app that mirrors exactly what TikTok does.”
“I’m concerned that young people in particular will lose a critical platform for sharing their opinions and their voice when TikTok is gone,” Woolley said. “I think that younger generations are going to be left without a native space online.”