Teenagers are hunched over and government officials are weary because of TikTok, the social media app owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, which is accused of giving the data of American users to Beijing.

TikTok should be banned in the United States because of the security concerns surrounding it.

Efforts to ban the app began in 2020, when then-President Donald Trump issued an executive order that unsuccessfully tried to ban TikTok on all American devices based on security concerns that the app collected more data than the vast majority of other social media platforms, so that this data could be accessed by the Chinese government.

Under Joe Biden’s presidency, TikTok was banned on all government-issued phones because of the same concerns, that the app functions as Chinese-controlled spyware, citing that although the app is owned by an American division of the Chinese company ByteDance, their operations are still controlled and monitored via the cloud directly from the parent company in Beijing.

Concern that the Chinese government having an American’s data begins with Beijing’s treatment of its own citizens, famously restricting and monitoring the Chinese internet heavily, and requiring companies to send the data they collect to the government so that they may control the media their citizens see. This is undoubtedly applied to TikTok as well, to exert cultural power over the United States.

Anyone concerned about China being able to control the media they see could personally delete TikTok, but until America falls out of love with infinite entertainment, and until China loosens its hold over its own companies, finding a middle ground will be arduous, and a ban will be the best option.