Auburn Banned TikTok, and Students Can’t Stop Talking About It

One former sorority sister at Auburn, for instance, “did a brand new TikTok dance each day selling Auburn Zeta Tau Alpha so folks would see how a lot enjoyable she was having along with her ‘zisters,’” Ms. Franco stated, including that it will be a “large hit” to Greek life at Auburn if the college’s ban prolonged to sorority TikTok accounts and associated hashtags.

Ms. Franco stated that she was not involved in regards to the safety dangers prompting the ban — a sentiment echoed by different college students, together with Ms. Hunt.

“From what I’ve heard and speaking with my buddies, I believe all of us lend a hand that it simply appears foolish and never very warranted,” Ms. Hunt stated. “Whereas I do perceive the priority round not realizing the place your knowledge goes, that’s not a TikTok-specific factor and all social media apps gather your knowledge.”

The reactions from college students mirror a major disconnect between TikTok’s most avid customers in America and the more and more bipartisan considerations about privateness and safety dangers. Many lawmakers and regulators in america argue that TikTok can share delicate knowledge in regards to the location, private habits and pursuits of People with the Chinese language authorities, and that the app can be utilized to unfold propaganda.

A bipartisan invoice launched in Congress final month would ban the app for everybody in america. The lawyer common of Indiana has sued TikTok, accusing the corporate of being misleading in regards to the safety and privateness dangers posed by the app.

Many lawmakers felt vindicated of their fears final month when ByteDance stated that an inside investigation discovered its staff had inappropriately obtained the information of U.S. TikTok customers, together with that of two reporters. The corporate stated that the workers concerned within the scheme — two in China and two in america — had been fired. The Chinese language firm sought to emphasise its knowledge safety efforts over the previous 15 months and its current work shifting the information of U.S. TikTok customers to a cloud storage system operated by Oracle, the Silicon Valley software program firm.

For now, the ban has not appeared to alter the lives of undergraduates an excessive amount of.

When college students opened the TikTok app on the campus Wi-Fi final week, they have been capable of see solely essentially the most just lately posted video and no feedback, in accordance with Ms. Ambus. However college students can nonetheless entry the app on their very own gadgets, by means of their private Wi-Fi or mobile service. Ms. Franco stated that when a instructor requested in regards to the ban in her sports activities in America class final week, college students stated that they didn’t care about it and that they have been nonetheless actively utilizing TikTok.