July has been a rocky month so far for TikTok, the social media app that’s taken the world by storm in the last few years. The reason things have been so bad for TikTok lately is that the U.S. appears to be seriously considering a ban on the app. Such a ban is threatening to come just weeks after India’s government banned the app in that country.
The reasons given for TikTok’s ban in India and its potential ban in the U.S. by the countries’ governments come down to them viewing the app as a security threat. This is due to the fact that TikTok is owned by Chinese-based ByteDance. The U.S. and Indian government fear TikTok either has or could funnel information about its citizens to the Chinese Communist Party. Of course, the geopolitics of late also come into play here.
But just how would Americans respond if the U.S. government said they could no longer access TikTok? Thanks to a Morning Consult survey, we now have some idea:
- Twenty-nine percent of U.S. adults said TikTok should be banned, while 33% said it shouldn’t. Thirty-eight percent did not know whether it should be banned or not. This means that almost a third of America is still undecided about a TikTok ban, which means the majority could still go either way.
- However, when broken down by political affiliation, those numbers change radically.
- Forty-four percent of Republicans surveyed said TikTok should be banned. However, just 19% of Democrats and 26% of Independents said the same.
- When broken down by age, those in favor of a TikTok ban skew toward the older end of the spectrum.
- Thirty-four percent of baby boomers said TikTok should be banned, with 32% of Gen-Xers saying the same. However, just 21% of millennials and 20% of Gen Z say the app should be banned.
- And speaking of Gen Z, the survey found that 25% of Gen Z-ers said they are more inclined to use the app after learning the U.S. government is considering a ban.
As of the time of this writing, TikTok is the third most-downloaded free app in Apple’s App Store and the fourth most-downloaded free app in the Google Play store. It currently has over 2 billion downloads to date.
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