In recent months, the community of TikTok users have faced the potential of the government officially taking action to ban the popular social media site in the U.S.

Due to constant concerns that the app allowed the Chinese government to spy on Americans, a bill was passed on March 13 by the House stating that the Beijing-based company ByteDance should have six months to sell TikTok otherwise all access through the web and app store would be banned in the U.S. The bill still must pass the Senate and be signed into law by the president.

“I’ve heard that we might have six months left of TikTok, I don’t hear a lot of people talking about it, so I’m not sure how serious it is. I think if it does happen, it will affect some people positively and others negatively,” freshman Rosie Zi said. “I think more people should know and share their opinions so that maybe we can attempt to have a say whether it should happen or not.”

TikTok had previously taken action by alerting some users. As they opened the app, they have a message asking them to ‘Let Congress know what TikTok means to you and tell them to vote NO.’

“The notification that I got was to stop the ban so they wanted me to call the mayor and explain to him why we should keep TikTok. No matter how many times I cleared out of the app or turned my phone off, it wouldn’t go away,” senior Kenna Hussung said. “I think it was annoying because I just wanted to scroll TikTok and I didn’t really care about calling the mayor because I know he doesn’t care. He wasn’t even on the phone. It was like a voice message.”

This TikTok notification claimed that this bill ‘strips 170 million Americans of their Constitutional right to free expression,” and sophmore Myleigh Bryant agrees with this statement.

“I’m a big fan of TikTok. I think it’s ridiculous that the government has the power to shut down something so harmless. I mean it’s just a social media app. I don’t understand what China can learn from spying on people lip-syncing and doing ‘Get ready with me’s. I think it’s just unfair and seems like an abuse of power, ” Bryant said

The social media app has been the center of banning rumors in the past as well.

“I’ve heard rumors of it being banned before in the past years, but after I heard that they were serious about it and even were doing something law-wise, I was kind of scared. I kind of understand the reasoning a little, but I feel like it’s a little extreme. So many people use TikTok. I just think it would be silly of the government to make so many people upset,” Zi said.

One student explained how it would affect not only viewers but creators as well.

“Like the smaller influencers that are trying to make money, they couldn’t anymore. I know I follow a smaller creator, and they were talking about how this is their income and it won’t be. I feel like it’s good for people who watch it not the creators because, no offense, I spend my whole day watching (TikTok). My screen time from TikTok is like seven hours a day,” senior Ella Hall said.