Here’s why I’m freaking out about a possible TikTok ban!

If you are an avid TikTok scroller like me, then you must know what happens now that we lose our beloved app. So many emotions, so little time…

TikTok CEO Shou Chew was targeted by Congress this week in an effort to get the app banned in the United States. If you caught the trial, which I’ve honestly only seen on TikTok and nowhere else, you’re probably just as annoyed by the resulting craziness as I am.

I’m starting to worry that this might actually happen!

I know everyone has their reasons for being upset about the prospect of our government taking away the app. I have a few reasons of my own.

First of all, I like to scroll through TikTok at the end of a long day to relax and turn my brain off for a bit. Second, I get a good portion of my stories for it The explosion from TikTok. I’ve written about Mama Tot, Nudacris, the sphinx, the corn pup, Dylan Mulvaney, Jonathan Graziano (owner of Noodle the pug), Howie the Cancer, and many more. Losing TikTok means potentially losing stories and the stories of people and animals that I’ve been writing about for so long.

And third, and this is where my horror story comes in, I lost another social media account that was going through a rough patch.

My own social media horror story

In the summer of 2021, I was faced with a series of very unfortunate events. I woke up one morning, took out my phone, clicked on the Facebook icon and everything went downhill. Instead of seeing my Facebook feed, I saw a huge message that took up the entire phone screen saying that my page was suspended. There is no explanation as to why, but if I disagree with their decision, I can appeal it.

I followed the appeal instructions, filled out the requested information, uploaded a photo of my driver’s license to prove I am who I say I am, and then received a message saying my case is pending review. Within a few minutes I received an email from Facebook saying that they stand by their decision and my account will be deleted.

I quickly scrolled to the Instagram icon and another hit – my Instagram page was also taken down. All the pages that were associated with my Facebook page are gone. This means that my son, who was a child actor, also lost his Facebook and Instagram pages that I created for his fans so they could keep up with the fun projects he was doing. Some of the photos and videos have not been saved elsewhere. I know, I know… my own stupidity. But nevertheless, these are memories lost forever.

Come to find out my Facebook page was hacked and while I was sleeping that night they changed my profile picture and cover picture. My oldest son’s girlfriend happened to be awake and online at the time and saw this happen. He took a screenshot of it for me, so things at least made some sense as to why Facebook blocked me. But even though I had this proof and verified my identity with my driver’s license, no one could be reached to explain the situation and get my bills back. I tried for weeks. I tried everything I could to reach a live person to hopefully help me get my pages back. It never happened.

So why was I so upset about this? My account had been active for about 10 years at this point. I had all my children’s photos, memories were full of funny things they said or did, I had saved messages from dead friends and relatives and there was no way to get them back. I always thought my photos were safe there. Some of them were not backed up anywhere else, except Instagram, which was also stolen from me. Lesson learned – don’t trust the internet and back up everything.

To top it all off, my best friend from high school died a few days before my Facebook page was hacked and shut down, and I haven’t been able to contact his family to see how they’re doing while this is all going on. It was a gross blunder that social media was not safe at all.

So why am I upset about the possibility of losing TikTok? Well, I wasn’t so devastated by the loss of Facebook and Instagram for the same reasons. It’s more that another line of communication has been taken away from me. TikTok has become a community of like-minded people for me. I go there to learn, to laugh, to learn, and just to occasionally escape the harsh world of growing up. I love writing about TikTokers. I love putting these amazing content creators in the news for something good they do.

The trial was painful to watch!

If you’ve seen a clip of the trial, you’ll know what I mean when I say it was crazy! There were so many unreal moments. The decision seems to have been made before TikTok CEO Shou Chew even uttered a single word.

Missed it all? Don’t worry… fellow TikTokers have your back. A quick search of the app will turn up a rabbit hole of information, opinions and sentiment. Many people, and I mean many people, shared clips from the trial period along with their thoughts on the app.

Even Chew himself shared some information about what’s going on.

While we don’t yet know what the future holds for TikTok, I for one really hope that some miracle happens and we don’t lose the app. I want to continue to bring you stories of people and animals doing great things that make your day a little bit smoother.