Thirteen hours of darkness on TikTok left students at St. Louis High School without their main source of entertainment. TikTok shut down on January 18th two hours early, surprising all sorts of Americans, and left students posting on other social media about the early ban.
Scheduled for January 19th, TikTok was supposed to shut down due to allegations of unconfirmed spying on Americans by the Chinese Communist Party. Byte Dance, TikTok’s parent company, as well as service providers, were ordered to shut down US-based servers and end support for American users. This led to an outcry from millions of people.
Locally, students at SLHS had emotional reactions to the ban. In fact, senior Brynn Saxton claimed, “I was not surprised that it was going to happen with the talk up about it for weeks before, but I was surprised that it was banned earlier than said. I was upset about losing a lot of stuff on the app. When it got brought back I was shocked because I didn’t think it would come back so soon, but it’s nice to have everything back on there again.”
Additionally, Damian Rosenberger stated, “The unexpected TikTok ban deeply saddened me because I couldn’t blow up my girlfriend’s phone with TikTok videos.”
However, some students like senior Easton Selski stated, “I didn’t mind TikTok getting banned because of Instagram reels but it was just the thought of it getting banned because I’ve been using the app for like four years.”
Students at SLHS are thankful for the return of TikTok and hope it’s here to stay for good! However, the ban and unban goes to show just how temporary entertainment can be and students can’t depend on just one thing to last forever.