Everything You Need To Know About the TikTok Ban in the U.S.

The world has gotten used to its daily dose of TikTok videos. No harm ever came from a cat falling off a ledge or a person getting drunk and making a fool of themselves. While all of this may not be threatening to individuals, the government feels like it is a threat to the nation.
Why Does the U.S. Want to Ban TikTok?
TikTok was originally called Musical.ly, an American app. It was purchased in 2017 by a Chinese company called ByteDance. People gained world-wide popularity from dance and cooking videos and all sorts of viral content shared on TikTok.
In 2019, Peterson Institute for International Economics, an American think tank, found that TikTok had the ability to send data back to its parent company, ByteDance, located in China. Later in the year, Senators Chuck Schumer, Tom Cotton, and Marco Rubi, asked the government to investigate TikTok.
The next two presidents, Donald Trump and Joe Biden, also investigated TikTok and were looking to ban it. An executive order during Trump’s era claimed that data collection by TikTok helped Chinese Communist Parties to gain valuable American information. This would supposedly pave the way for China to easily conduct espionage and track government employees.
Emily Baker-White, an investigative journalist, also uncovered a few examples of ByteDance employees involved in surveillance on her and another associate. However, not all experts agree about the extent of the involvement of the Chinese government. Some claim that there is not sufficient confirmation of TikTok using data for Chinese political gain.
Is TikTok a Threat?
Whether TikTok is a threat to national security may never be proven, it is a threat to American owned companies that are trying to copy TikTok. Some activists, however, claim that banning TikTok is a violation of the First Amendment.
What Now?
While Joe Biden has dropped all Trump’s attempts to ban TikTok, the app is still being investigated. Although the app is banned on all government devices, they can still use TikTok on their personal devices. The University of Mississippi has also banned the app on the institution’s WiFi and official devices, however, students use another WiFi connection or cellular plan to access it.
Although the U.S. is looking to ban TikTok for various political reasons, it may not happen completely. Watch this space for more as this story develops.
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Uhh, this has already been possible – I am not sure how but remember my brother telling me about it. I’m not a whatsapp user so not sure of the specifics, but something about sending the image as a file and somehow bypassing the default compression settings that are applied to inbound photos.
He has also used this to share movies to whatsapp groups, and files 1Gb+.
Like I said, I never used whatsapp, but I know 100% this isn’t a “brand new feature”, my brother literally showed me him doing it, like… 5 months ago?
Martin, what happened to those: 12 Comments (https://www.ghacks.net/chatgpt-gets-schooled-by-princeton-university/#comments). Is there a specific justifiable reason why they were deleted?
Hmm, it looks like the gHacks website database is faulty, and not populating threads with their relevant cosponsoring posts.
The page on ghacks this is on represents the best of why it has become so worthless, fill of click-bait junk that it’s about to be deleted from my ‘daily reads’.
It’s really like “Press Release as re-written by some d*ck for clicks…poorly.” And the subjects are laughable. Can’t wait for “How to search for files on Windows”.
> The page on ghacks this is on represents the best of why it has become so worthless, fill of click-bait junk…
Sadly, I have to agree.
Only Martin and Ashwin are worth subscribing to.
Especially Emre Çitak and Shaun are the worst ones.
If ghacks.net intended “Clickbait”, it would mark the end of Ghacks Technology News.
Ghacks doesn’t need crappy clickbaits. Clearly separate articles from newer authors (perhaps AIs and external sales person or external advertising man) as just “Advertisements”!
We, the subscribers of Ghacks, urge Martin to make a decision.
because nevermore wants to “monetize” on every aspect of human life…
“Threads” is like the Walmart of Social Media.
How hard can it be to clone a twitter version of that as well? They’re slow.
Yes, why not mention how large the HD files can be?
Why, not mention what version of WhatsApp is needed?
These omissions make the article feel so bare. If not complete.
Sorry posted on the wrong page.
such a long article for such a simple matter. Worthless article ! waste of time
I already do this by attaching them via the ‘Document’ option.
I don’t know what’s going on here at Ghacks but it’s obvious that something is broken, comments are being mixed whatever the article, I am unable to find some of my later posts neither. :S
Quoting the article,
“As users gain popularity, the value of their tokens may increase, allowing investors to reap rewards.”
Besides, beyond the thrill and privacy risks or not, the point is to know how you gain popularity, be it on social sites as everywhere in life. Is it by being authentic, by remaining faithful to ourselves or is it to have this particular skill which is to understand what a majority likes, just like politicians, those who’d deny to the maximum extent compatible with their ideological partnership, in order to grab as many of the voters they can?
I see the very concept of this Friend.tech as unhealthy, propagating what is already an increasing flaw : the quest for fame. I won’t be the only one to count himself out, definitely.
@John G. is right : my comment was posted on [https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/23/what-is-friend-tech/] and it appears there but as well here at [https://www.ghacks.net/2023/07/08/how-to-follow-everyone-on-threads/]
This has been lasting for several days. Fix it or at least provide some explanations if you don’t mind.
> Google Chrome is following in Safari’s footsteps by introducing a new feature that allows users to move the Chrome address bar to the bottom of the screen, enhancing user accessibility and interaction.
Firefox did this long before Safari.
Basically they’ll do anything except fair royalties.