Why Kentuckians should reject attempts to ban TikTok for Americans: Opinion

From journalism to boutiques, tourism to family values and career advice, TikTok has a growing share of users from the commonwealth. Federal and state lawmakers continue to push for efforts that would ban the popular platform, used by over 100 million Americans to connect and express. Their justifications for doing so are close-minded, out of touch and ignorant at times in the face of countless other - far graver - threats to America’s youth.

TikTok is a Place for expression, innovation and community

A mural artist in Lexington has achieved over 250,000 followers and nearly seven million likes sharing his creativity and our great Kentucky communities. Wylie even painted a horse sculpture that sold for $20,000 in a fundraiser to fund local arts programs. The McFarland Family of Louisville has gained a giant following sharing their ‘wholesome’ family happenings. A family of golden retrievers (and their dad) in Lexington have over one million followers enjoying the insufferable cuteness. The account has over 15.5 million likes.

"There's no better place to put videos than TikTok," Dylan McFarland told the Courier Journal in an interview last summer.

A south central Kentucky healthcare business professional has emboldened so many people by sharing her determination throughout her career in a fun, blunt fashion. ‘AB’ has since launched a podcast, Listen, Sis, thanks to her TikTok rise (a recent episode was titled “To Remain or to Evolve, that is the question”). That is the question.

The Pink Lily Boutique and The KY Shop are just two examples of small businesses in Kentucky thriving, in large part because of their social media rise - particularly on TikTok.

Kentuckians continue to benefit from real, on the ground, timely journalism from people like the Courier Journal’s Olivia Krauth, who has amassed over half a million likes and nearly 15,000 followers (in a rather brief timeframe) sharing local news to citizens where they are.

All of these so-called TikTokers are Kentuckians - and they are partners in our commonwealth. Rather than supporting efforts to stimmy creativity, obstruct entrepreneurship and blockade information flows, Kentucky’s elected federal leaders and state electeds alike should be exploring ways to reform social media broadly - making cyberspace safer for kids and less hostile towards democracy.

More: Rand Paul: Do Congressional Republicans really want to emulate China by banning TikTok?

The real threat will persist

Congress wasted four hours two weeks ago belittling a CEO on a subject the committee members clearly did not understand or simply couldn't care less to learn. The focus should not be on taking down one platform that may mishandle user data or design algorithms that put profits over people and civility. Rather, if our security and safety of our citizens and democracy are the real concerns, the light should be shining bright on every social platform in the nation - from Instagram to Grindr and everything in between.

Let’s BeReal (get it?)

Snapchat was responsible for 75% of the Fentanyl related deaths for people between the ages of 13 and 18 in 2020-2022. The cause of death, as determined by a coroner, of a 14-year-old girl from the United Kingdom included Instagram and Pinterest. The content that the young girl observed on the apps before her death was “so hard to watch” - even for the coroner, who looks at mutilated dead bodies daily. Just this month, a Canadian man filed a lawsuit against the gay networking app, Grindr, alleging four men he met on the app raped him when he was just 15-years-old.

We all know how platforms like Twitter and Truth Social contribute to growing political violence. Of Twitter, Katherine Cross of The Wired says “abstinence-only policies don’t work for anything else, and they won’t work for Twitter, but harm reduction is worth seriously considering.”

Tech experts have argued that “Washington’s laser-focus on capturing this one piece has blinded it to the bigger game.” Liberal Senator Bernie Sanders says he has concerns about the mental health impacts of all social media - “It’s not just TikTok. It’s across the board.” Conservative Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky penned a piece for The Courier Journal opposing the hypocritical urge to hinder First Amendment rights - Paul blocked a move to pass a ban of TikTok via unanimous consent in the Senate last week.

More: Some TikTok users 'can't believe' they're praising Rand Paul after he blocked ban of app

We should protect Kentucky’s kids and youth across America - banning TikTok won’t do that. When children can be gunned down in their school, located in a church, and members of the United States Congress say they “won’t fix [it],” we should all recognize the naivety in believing that a ban of one app will make kids safe. When lawmakers pass legislation that medical experts say will kill children, and cheer nonetheless, we should all recognize this concern for kids as purely political.

We need tech reform - we need greater protections for youth in the digital society and we need to be proactive when it comes to social technology innovation. Though, a slow stream of reactive, inconsistent policies when it comes to things like AI and social media will never fill the fountains of innovation or protect civility.

Brandon Cooper is an alum of U of L and a graduate student at the George Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Why Kentuckians should reject attempts to ban TikTok for Americans