Who needs a government ban? TikTok users are already defending themselves

Samuel Aldridge is a 33-year-old dad from North Carolina. He’s worked 12-hour days as a pipelayer for most of his adult life. He’s a self-proclaimed “Average Joe.” He also has nearly two million followers and 50 million likes on TikTok.

After a six-year social media journey across various platforms, Aldridge made it big on TikTok in 2022 as @Slamuri. His niche was storytelling—he’s the faceless narrator behind the heavily researched, 50-part sagas about true crime and internet drama that suck unsuspecting scrollers into hours-long deep dives.

Thanks to the mysterious TikTok algorithm boosting one of his videos, “TikTokers who did terrible things,” to over 15 million people, Aldridge was able to quit his construction job and support his family by making TikToks full-time.

Six months ago he decided it wasn’t worth it.

“Once you’re sucked into creating content, a lot of your social life just kind of disappears,” he said. “I realized to keep things moving, I was just going to have to keep working more and more and I was already working 17 to 19 hours a day just doing content.”

In February, he announced on all his social media platforms that he was returning to pipe-laying and stepping back from content creation. His reasoning was simple—he wanted more time with his young kids, and TikTok had consumed his life. He feared he was missing a pivotal moment that he couldn’t get back.

Aldridge isn’t alone. Some users and creators on TikTok are parting ways with the app, citing a variety of reasons ranging from the addictive algorithm to body image issues. User growth as a whole on the platform is slowing down; TikTok’s annual user base grew 84 percent between 2019 and 2020, but only increased by 8 percent between 2023 and 2024, according to a Business of Apps report.

On top of this mounting exodus, on April 23 Congress passed a bill proposing to ban TikTok if its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, refuses to sell within nine months. This new version of the bill, which initially passed the House in mid-March, was updated “based on negotiations with key senators” to speed it through the Senate, according to Politico. President Joe Biden signed the bill into action the next day.

TikTok is challenging the law in court, and oral arguments begin on September 16, but the app’s legal troubles don’t end there. On Friday the Justice Department sued TikTok and ByteDance, arguing that the app violated child privacy laws by allowing children to bypass age restrictions and collecting their data.

TikTok’s future is dubious in America on all fronts, but Congress’ complaints about the platform differ significantly from the average user’s.

A national security threat? The bipartisan legislators in favor of the bill say that TikTok’s Chinese ownership seriously threatens national security. Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, the Republican chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, called the app “a spy balloon in Americans’ phones” and “a modern-day Trojan horse” of the Chinese Communist Party on April 20 when he introduced the updated measure to the House.

“National security experts are sounding the alarm, warning that our foreign adversaries are using every tool at their disposal, including apps like TikTok, to amass troves of sensitive data on all Americans,” Democratic Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey said. “This bill takes decisive action to mitigate our foreign adversaries’ ability to collect Americans’ data and use it against us.”

Despite worries from members of Congress, both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump created public TikTok accounts this summer during their presidential campaigns. Trump has called the app a national security threat and attempted to ban it in 2020 during his presidency, but recently argued against a ban, saying it would only make Meta companies stronger. A spokesperson for Harris told Fox Business that the vice president does not want a ban, but “would just like to see a change in ownership.”

While both parties are embroiled in arguments about information security, China’s data-storing practices aren’t even on some TikTok users’ list of reasons to quit scrolling.

Addictive engagement. “I think even if a lot of the public found out that there was a major link between the Chinese government and TikTok, they really wouldn’t care,” Aldridge said. “For me right now, it could go either way because I don’t really use it anymore. I’m working a full-time job.”

Anna Shvidler is a college student and self-proclaimed reformed TikTok addict. She said she finally quit the app in late 2022 after many futile attempts, her main concern being how time-consuming it was.

“The beginning of the pandemic felt like it was going on for such a long time because I had so much free time in the day, but as soon as I got TikTok, the days went by so quickly that they all kind of meshed together,” she said.

Users spend more time and initiate more interactions on TikTok than on any other app, according to Social Insider data. Even though the platform’s engagement rate has steadily fallen by about 35 percent each year, it still far outranks competitors; Instagram’s engagement rate is less than a third of TikTok’s.

The app’s highly individualized algorithm is “designed to continuously improve, correct, and learn from your own engagement with the platform to produce personalized recommendations,” according to TikTok’s website. This ingenuity bombards users with an essentially infinite number of videos that, in theory, perfectly mirror their interests and beliefs. While there’s little literature about the actual mechanisms of the app’s algorithm, it’s clear that it’s succeeding at keeping users engaged.

In February, psychologist Christian Montag and neuroscientist Sebastian Markett published an article in BMC Psychology on the app’s potential to be addictive, analyzing the link between mental health issues and what they call TikTok Use Disorder. They argue that TikTok’s staggering popularity and the lack of research on the platform warrant a unique category outside of general social media overuse.

Montag and Markett reported that TikTok overuse was linked to neurotic and depressive tendencies. They also found that users may watch TikTok as a form of escapism from negative emotions, encouraging further addictive behavior.

“Let’s say you are consuming a video, and although it is not funny, the next one probably will be and it is just a few seconds around the corner,” Montag said. “So users are in an expectation mode that something interesting will happen when consuming the next video.”

Peter Anto Johnson is a biomedical engineering student at the University of Alberta studying addiction and “dopamine fasting,” a viral technique to restrict impulsive behaviors by cutting out engaging stimuli like TikTok. He said that while experts are still learning about the mental impact of social media, there’s evidence that overuse can be detrimental.

“I think social media addiction is definitely something that’s out there, and it’s not recognized by the [Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, an authoritative and widely used psychiatry handbook] or as a mental health disorder,” Johnson said. “But I think with the growing trends, I do see it coming to a point where we might see that being classified as more of an addictive behavior.”

Self-esteem and body image issues. Addiction isn’t the only mental health impact that’s pushing TikTokers to quit. Some cite heightened negative senses of self-esteem and body image issues due to harmful content that slips through the cracks in the app’s content moderation system.

“I started experiencing a lot of negativity with my first few videos,” Aldridge said. “I started actually reading comments and taking things to heart. And that, as a creator, is one thing that you just really shouldn’t do.”

Hateful social media comments are associated with a myriad of mental health issues, including depression, anxiety and body image issues, according to social anxiety expert and clinical psychologist Arlin Cuncic, author of The Anxiety Workbook. Specifically on image and video-based platforms like TikTok, users are bombarded with content that proliferates unrealistic beauty standards and encourages heightened self-scrutiny.

Eating disorder and body image content are such a contentious part of TikTok’s algorithm that the app had a section dedicated to them on its community guidelines page. The website reads: “We want TikTok to be a place that encourages self-esteem and does not promote negative social comparisons. We do not allow showing or promoting disordered eating and dangerous weight loss behaviors.”

But some harmful content inevitably passes by the algorithm’s sporadic regulation, which has been criticized for its lack of moderation.

Rachel Rodgers is a professor of applied psychology at Northeastern University who researches the intersection of social media, body image, and eating disorders. She said she doesn’t use any form of social media because of the potential detrimental impact it can have on mental health.

“If a platform is mostly photo or video, it is orienting users toward taking pictures and videos of them,” Rodgers said. “Therefore, that aligns with the discourse in our society that centers appearance as being an important element of people’s social value, particularly important for people who typically hold lower levels of privilege and power.”

Users like Natalie Williams, a 21-year-old pre-med student, say the rigid beauty standards TikTok promoted drove them off the platform.

“I was first inspired to quit TikTok because I was going through a period of my life where I was feeling really insecure, especially about my body,” Williams said. “I felt like every time I went on TikTok, I would just see random girls who are a size zero, size double zero, who looked perfect. And every time I saw that, it just made me feel horrible about myself.”

Ban has few fans. Whether their reasoning for quitting be worsening mental health or simply a lack of time for constant content consumption, former TikTok users are clear on one front—they don’t care about China using their data.

For the average person, Chinese access to their scrolling history isn’t an immediate concern. The get-ready-with-me videos they make, or the drama series they binge, aren’t particularly incriminating, especially when they know that countless other social media apps are also storing their data. However, the Justice Department’s recent suit adds another layer to Congress’ worries. In the complaint, the department alleges that TikTok knowingly allowed children under 13 to create accounts, collected their data, and refused to delete the accounts upon parents’ requests. While many Americans may not care about their own data, their children’s internet presence is another story.

Despite this, many remain opposed to the ban, and even international relations experts are skeptical about Congress’ reasoning for its anti-TikTok tirade. Jonathan Aronson is a professor of communication, international relations, and political science at the University of Southern California and an affiliate of the USC US-China Institute. He criticized the bill as overkill and said banning TikTok is like “using a sledgehammer to drive in a nail.”

“I do know the Chinese spy on Americans all the time. I also know Americans spy on the Chinese all the time. The Russians are even worse,” he said. “Whether or not there’s anything special about TikTok doing it, from what I have seen, I doubt it.”

Meta, the American company that owns TikTok competitors Instagram and Facebook, has been criticized for its data storage issues. In 2018, NBC compiled a timeline of Facebook’s privacy issues since the platform’s 2004 inception, including a March 2018 data breach that exposed the personal information of nearly 50 million users. While Chinese platforms may farm data, American apps don’t promise much more security for users’ private information.

Anti-Chinese sentiment. TikTok is specifically targeted because of its Chinese ownership. In the Justice Department’s recent response to TikTok’s lawsuit against the ban, it claims the app’s offer to prevent ByteDance from accessing US user data wouldn’t prevent China’s government from demanding the information or manipulating content on the platform. This makes the app’s data collection more sinister in the department’s eyes than data collection by American companies, regardless of whether TikTok’s protection measures are better or worse.

Perhaps some of Congress’ anti-TikTok views aren’t just about the sanctity of American data. Anti-Chinese sentiment grew significantly in the last five years, with 81 percent of Americans holding an unfavorable view of China in 2024 compared with 60 percent in 2019, according to Pew Research. This may have been bolstered by former President Trump’s public mockery of China. After Trump called COVID-19 the “Chinese Virus” in 2020, a study published in the American Journal of Public Health noted an increase in hate crimes and anti-Asian hashtags.

“If you’re going to do this, if you can prove there’s a problem, sure, go after them. But simply because they’re owned by the Chinese?” Aronson asked. “How about if they were owned by the Swedes? Would you go after them then? Or if they were owned by the Israelis? Or the Gazans?… Where do you stop? How do you draw the line?”

Editor’s note: Hali Mecklin is the daughter of Bulletin editor in chief John Mecklin, who played no role in the editing of this article. This piece is an adaptation of an article previously published by USC Annenberg Media.