TikTok files lawsuit seeking to block sales
TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, has filed a lawsuit against legislation that would force the company to either sell the platform or face being banned in the U.S. Tim Edgar, professor of the practice of computer science at Brown University, appeared on LiveNOW with FOX’s Josh Breslow to discuss the matter.
Summary According to a new survey from the Pew Research Center, 17% of U.S. adults say they regularly get news from TikTok, a fivefold increase from about 3% in 2020. The increase comes as TikTok continues to face safety scrutiny in the U.S. and could be banned if the company’s ownership does not change by early 2025.
The number of U.S. adults turning to TikTok for news continues to grow.
A summer survey by the Pew Research Center found that 17% of adults regularly get their news from the social media app known for sharing short-form video.
This number has increased fivefold in recent years, and in 2020, only 3% of adults said TikTok was a source of news.
Looking at TikTok users specifically, nearly half (52%) now say they regularly get their news there, up from 43% in 2023 and 22% in 2020.
The survey results showed that TikTok users are more likely to get their news from TikTok than Facebook users are to get their news from Facebook.
X, formerly Twitter, still has the most users who report getting their news on the site regularly.
Related: TikTok files lawsuit over U.S. laws forcing sales and bans
Young people on TikTok
The demographics of people getting their news from TikTok vary significantly across age groups, with a breakdown of:
Currently, 39% of adults under 30 say they regularly get their news from television, but that number is much lower among adults ages 30-49 (19%), 50-64 (9%), and 65 and older (3%).
Why does the US want to ban TikTok?
US House of Representatives passes bill to ban TikTok
The House of Representatives passed a bill on Wednesday by a vote of 352 to 65 that could ban TikTok in the U.S. The fight now heads to the Senate. The bill would require ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns the app, to divest its investment within 165 days of passage, or TikTok would be banned in the U.S. Jamil Jaffer, founder and executive director and professor at GMU School of Law, weighs in.
TikTok was first released in China in 2016 and spread globally in 2018. Since then, it has skyrocketed in popularity but also come under increasing scrutiny.
The platform continues to face growing privacy concerns, leading to bans of the app on government devices and even statewide bans.
Since its global launch, TikTok has had to fend off allegations that its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, shares data with the Chinese government and that its proprietary algorithms are vulnerable to manipulation by Chinese authorities.
Currently, TikTok and ByteDance are challenging a U.S. law passed in April that gives them until mid-January to cut ties or face being banned in the United States, one of the world’s largest markets.
Read more: Biden signs TikTok ban bill – what’s next?
Can I download TikTok?
Yes, you can still download TikTok, or if you’ve already downloaded it, that’s no problem.
Even if the ban does come into effect, the app is unlikely to disappear from phones.
However, it will be removed from the Apple and Google app stores, making it unavailable for new users to download.
This also means that TikTok will no longer be able to send out updates, security patches, or bug fixes, making the app more likely to become unusable over time, as well as posing a security risk.
sauce
The information in this article was taken from a Pew Research Center survey of 10,658 adults conducted from July 15 to August 4, 2024. Information about the TikTok ban was taken from past reporting by Fox Television.
