The Funniest TikToker Reactions to Congress Potentially Banning TikTok

This morning, the House of Representatives voted in favor of a bill that would force ByteDance, the China-based parent company of the popular social media platform TikTok, to sell their stake in TikTok, or else the app will be banned across America. Little did Congress know that, within minutes, TikTok’s teenage legal team would begin submitting their dance rebuttals thirty seconds at a time. 

Widespread concerns over the invasive practices of the app have made TikTok a popular target for lawmakers looking to give lip service to fears over the Chinese Communist Party’s potential to use the platform to influence American politics and monitor American citizens. After years of flirting with a ban, a bipartisan coalition of congress members finally moved to force ByteDance’s hand with an unusually swift vote of 352 to 65 in favor of the legislation. The bill will now go to the senate while TikTok and its defenders denounce the measure as an attack on free speech, with a TikTok representative arguing in a recent statement  “This process was secret and the bill was jammed through for one reason: it’s a ban.”

With 170 million TikTok users in the U.S., many of whom are Generation Z and below, the reaction to the move on the platform itself runs the gamut from informed concern, partially uninformed outrage and full-on ironic shitposting that ignores the policy implications of the decision in favor of comical chaos. Here are some of the highlights…

President Joe Biden has indicated that, should the senate pass the bill, he will approve the measure to oust ByteDance from American social media. Former President Donald Trump, however, has reversed his previous position that banning TikTok is an issue of national security as he claimed that his party couldn't withstand the outrage of the youngest demographic of voters in the upcoming election cycle, also adding that a blow to TikTok would be a win for Meta and Facebook, which he calls “an enemy of the people.”

To even things out, congress should introduce a bill banning Facebook just to rile up the other side of social media – imagine how unhinged those memes would be.