TikTok blew up during the times of quarantine, founded as a dance app but growing into a supportive platform that helps people relate and connect to others. It promotes having simple fun, a second to relax, and scrolling through 15 second videos. The popular app has always worked as a community that helps people understand themselves, and it also allows people to gain awareness on serious topics. Being in the twenty-first century, social media is one of the main methods to provide a platform to fight the injustices and discriminations of the world, which is why it should stay around.

   Freedom of speech comes in many forms, and most of the time, many people don’t have the resources or social status to speak up and spread information about the issues of the world that they feel most passionate about. So, they utilize another way to speak their mind: social media. It empowers people to tell their stories, and creates a safe place, especially for many minorities. In the past few weeks, the U.S. Congress has been working to put an end to the app for insufficient reasons with biased opinions that are based less on facts and more on the underlying prejudice of the app’s origins. I believe that this proposition is extremely and utterly ridiculous, as TikTok is not only an app dedicated to entertainment and funny videos, but also to bringing light to the darkness of history and everything happening in the world.

   Congress should not be involved in the fate of an app that is simply letting people have fun and spread information. The app is privately owned, and in addition to that, it is a way to help people thrive socially and financially. The decision makers are using absurd examples and information to disprove consumers’ implied safety and privacy, asking uneducated questions like “Is it connecting to the internet?” or “Why does it have to track my face for a filter?” 

   Many of these questions lead people to believe that the app was created by a Chinese source that is intended to observe and “spy” on the American people and acquire information about our country, which is a completely hysterical and preposterous way of thinking. 

   Having certain biases for the protection of the people is justifiable, but simply shutting down an app to silence the people creates more issues than it resolves– and with that, TikTok should not be banned.