Reflecting on the role of Tiktok in society as the new approaches to the deadline of prohibition approach

On January 18, I was one of the millions of Americans by moving through Tiktok when the service for the buffet video of everything he can, suddenly he stopped just before a federal government prohibition entered into force.

It was an impressive moment that was mourning. Where will I go now, I wondered, for my daily dose of Hollywood gossip, video game news and anime updates?

Tiktok, owned by a Chinese company, Bytedonce, and had faced a legal deadline to find an owner of the United States or face a ban, returned to life the next day. President Trump then quickly signed an executive order that extended the Tiktok window until April 5.

With that new deadline that is quickly approaching, the fate of Tiktok, which claims more than 170 million US users, remains uncertain. But at least for now, a repetition of the January blackout seems unlikely.

Last month, Mr. Trump <a target="_blank" class="css-yywogo" href="https://thehill.com/policy/technology/5180939-trump-considers-extending-tiktok-ban/” title=”” rel=”noopener noreferrer” target=”_blank”>He said to journalists that could extend the deadline again. And although the Bytedance has not confirmed any plan to sell, Oracle, the company of data centers and others have emerged as possible suitors.

The last deadline offers an appropriate time to reflect on the role of application in society. This is what I found.

Tiktok is still the best short video application

Tiktok started 11 years ago as a musical.ly, an application for users to publish lip synchronization videos, but over time it became a general purpose video application where people could move through short news and entertainment clips. Now it has more than one billion users worldwide.

In the last five years, as Tiktok emerged in popularity worldwide, goal, Google and others produced clones that allow users to move incessantly through video clips. But Younger users still prefer Tiktok To watch short videos, according to an Emarketer survey, a research firm.

The preference for Tiktok can be partially linked to product quality. Videos made in Tiktok are usually seen better, clearer, more edited and catchy, than videos produced with similar applications such as instagram reels. (Why drink a warm tail when you can have a classic coca?) The Tiktok tools, including the Capcut edition application, rationalize the production of videos for the application.

For me, when Tiktok went briefly, changing the reels felt crazy. Many users published videos that felt incomplete, such as a video of Sourdough Bret that asked me to read the title to learn to bake the perfect bread. Why not explain it in the video instead of a legend written in small text?

Meta, owner of instagram, is playing with the Tiktok editing tools. An instagram spokeswoman referred to the company <a target="_blank" class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.instagram.com/reel/DFBIzLAynIQ/?igsh=aWE3dTV1ZHU4dWxj” title=”” rel=”noopener noreferrer” target=”_blank”>advertisement From editions, a Capcut competitor to edit Reels videos, which is expected to debut in the coming weeks. The tool will allow instagram users to load videos in a higher resolution, which will improve the image quality, among other advantages.

Tiktok's secret sauce, which others have not replicated either, is their algorithm to determine what videos people want to see next. Many have said in the surveys that Tiktok is more in tune to emerge the types of videos they want to see, especially from food ideas to video games, keeping them attached to their screens for hours a day.

Mental health concerns are increasing

The effectiveness of Tiktok to keep people moving has been a issue of general concern among parents and academic researchers who wonder if people could be considered addicted to the application, similar to video game addiction.

Studies on the subject continue and remain not conclusive. One, Posted last year and directed by Christian Montag, professor of cognitive and brain sciences at the University of Macao in China, examined the excessive use of Tiktok. Very few people in the study, which involved 378 participants of various ages, reported that they felt addicted to Tiktok.

However, in general terms, the consensus of multiple studies on Tiktok and other social media applications is that younger people are more likely to inform that they feel addicted, said Dr. Montag in an interview.

“I think children should not be at all on these platforms,” ​​he said about Tiktok and similar applications. People's brains can take at least 20 years to mature and regulate, he added.

A Tiktok spokeswoman said the application included tools for people to administer their screen time, including a new scenario for parents to prevent Tiktok from working on their children's phones during certain hours of the day.

It is a growth marketing platform for brands

Tiktok has become an important center for companies to promote their products through videos and published products sold through the Tiktok store, a store in the application.

The company is working hard so that Americans are aware of its impact on the economy, directing an agile advertising campaign in newspapers and advertising fences that are portrayed as a defender of small businesses.

A Tiktok spokeswoman cited a study that claimed that Tiktok drove $ 15 billion in income for small businesses in 2023, a figure that must be taken with a salt grain because Tiktok commissioned the study. But it is clear only for moving on Tiktok that many brands enjoy using it to spread videos that demonstrate their extravagant products.

I confess that Tiktok's videos led me to buy a tool too core to remove the fur of dogs from the car seats and an automatic treatment plant to clean the kitchen sink.

As for the so -called creators, the influential ones who publish Tiktok videos that often become viral, the platform is usually more useful for self -promotion than to earn money, said Alyssa McKay, an actress in New Jersey with more than 10 million Tiktok followers.

A video that gets two million visits could earn a few dollars, he said. That is because Tiktok only pays for the opinions that come from people who still do not follow it, he added.

It is still a national security concern

Tiktok was prohibited first because US government officials are concerned that Bytedance can share the data that has been collected in its US users with the Chinese government for espionage purposes.

These concerns culminated at a Supreme Court hearing in January, where the Biden administration argued to ban the application, citing concerns that Tiktok could create a new route for Chinese intelligence services to infiltrate the US infrastructure. But officials did not present evidence that Tiktok was connected with such threats.

However, Tiktok has been linked to smaller data scandals in the United States. Tiktok confirmed in 2022 that four of his employees had been fired for using the application to sniff several journalists in an effort to track their sources.

A Tiktok spokeswoman referred to a video Explaining how the application safeguards the data of US users in a server system protected by Oracle, the US database giant. UU. It was associated, to avoid unauthorized foreign access.

Matthew Green, a security researcher and associate professor of computer science at Johns Hopkins University, said that the United States government security concerns about Tiktok were exaggerated since an important but also valid scandal did not yet emerged because hypothetical damage could occur.

Many applications made by US companies collect and share our information with data corridors, companies that sell ideas about us to marketing specialists, including some in China. But Tiktok, in particular, can collect confidential data on Americans who would be useful for an adversary government, such as his address books, added Dr. Green.

“We are filtering so much information that you don't need Tiktok to get worse, but things get worse when you have millions and millions of different phones with this application,” said Dr. Green.