BY EMILY GAUDETTE
Senior Sophie Kripp deleted Tik Tok during the pandemic because she “felt like it was rotting [her] brain.”
Congress is holding a hearing this week to deliberate a ban on the popular, Chinese-owned app, Tik Tok. Some Stonehill students who don’t have the app said they don’t care if the app gets banned or not.
Kripp said lots of positive things have come from Tik Tok, such as self-expression and self-exploration, but she’s fine with it being banned.
“You can get short-term content on so many American-owned apps,” Kripp said.
This hearing will certainly set precedent for media regulation of the internet—something that the Federal Communication Commission has neglected due to the rapid growth of the internet over the past twenty years.
Three first-year students spent an average of one and a half to three hours every day on the app, according to their phones’ personal app data.
“I’m addicted to Tik Tok,” said first-year Grace Robison.
Many students agreed that banning Tik Tok for national security would make a lot of users mad, especially large Tik Tok creators like Charlie D’Amelio and Addison Rae.
Others were not convinced that the United States Congress had enough evidence to bring in the CEO for a hearing.
“How would you prove that the Chinese government is using personal data information for their own advantage?” said foreign-exchange student Khang Quoc Duong.
First-year Jeseth-Ezra Cabiles agreed with Quoc Duong that Tik Tok is primarily a form of entertainment.
“Social media is public. Everyone has a right to view, share, and comment on content,” said Cabiles.