By Jolie Shultz
Staff Writer

Though it’s a fairly new form of social media, TikTok has made a big name for itself. According to Statista.com, TikTok grew from 347.1 million global users in 2018 to 1,719 million global users in 2022.

TikTok is a social media platform where users are able to post and view a wide variety of video content. The platform also provides a store called the “TikTok Shop”, as well “TikTok live” where creators are able to live stream videos.

Although popular, TikTok isn’t without its controversies. More and more countries around the world are becoming more concerned with issues of cyberbullying, underage users and privacy breaches.

Several Asian countries have reportedly banned TikTok, with the most recent ban being in Nepal on Nov. 14. But Asian countries aren’t the only ones who are concerned. Canada, Denmark, Belgium, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States have all issued bans when it comes to having TikTok downloaded on government devices.

But countries aren’t the only ones instating TikTok bans. After all, Hutchinson Community College has its own ban on the app.

HutchCC’s ban on TikTok only goes as far as blocking the usage of the app on school wifi, but it appears to be an issue that not many students are up to speed on.

Eli Arends, a Grand Island, Neb. freshman, is one of those students.

“I think it’s kind of dumb,” Arends said about the ban. “In class, whenever I get on TikTok it doesn’t work, so I guess that explains it.”

Colin Cymbalista, a sophomore from Pickering, Ontario, Canada, also didn’t realize that there was a campus ban on TikTok.

“The school wifi’s not that good anyway, so I just use my data, so I didn’t even realize.” Cymbalista said.

While the ban may not seem like that big of a deal, there are several questions that could be taken into account when a campus wide ban is being introduced.
What if someone doesn’t have data? Should HutchCC be taking away a student’s ability to freely use a social media platform of their choice?

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