The other day in the span of 10 minutes, I learned how to remove a stuck wall anchor with a wine opener, heard seven economic predictions from so called experts, and laughed out loud at Home Depot employees recreating the Home Depot theme song with building supplies.

That’s what 10 minutes of scrolling through TikTok can provide.

Unless you’ve been on a vacation to a far away land (sounds great!), you’ve probably heard about the issues surrounding a potential TikTok ban.

As your weekly shot of marketing news, it stands to reason that we’d bring you both points of view on the issue.

Here’s the state of affairs…

TikTok is a wildly popular social media platform that has seen massive growth over the past several years, especially during the pandemic.

But…

The powers that be, including the U.S. government, are concerned about the fact that TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese owned company, which they think poses a security threat based on the amount of data the app is able to track about users.

The U.S. government feels so strongly about it that on February 27th, they gave government employees 30 days to delete the app from their government devices.

Other countries like Canada, France, and New Zealand have followed suit.

TikTok’s Chief Executive Officer, Shou Chew, gave five hours of testimony to the House of Energy and Commerce Committee about TikTok’s relationship with its parent company and China.

The U.S. government is concerned about laws that allow Chinese companies to secretly procure the data of users of Chinese owned platforms.

Now the pro-TikTook side…

TikTok claims that it has never been approached by the Chinese government to secretly share TikTok user data.

They are urging lawmakers to adopt a proposed agreement that addresses the security concerns instead of issuing a ban.

Furthermore, TikTok, along with leagues of supporters like the American Civil Liberties Union, see the ban as a violation of the First Amendment.

Perhaps most thought provoking is the assessment by the Data & Science Research Institute, which points out that TikTok’s data collection isn’t out of line with other apps Americans use regularly.

Whatever your take on the issue, it will be interesting to see how this issue plays out, and I’ll keep you updated along the way.