TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (WTWO/WAWV) — Several students at Indiana State University shared their thoughts on the potential ban of the popular social media app TikTok.
ISU senior Bailey Bright uses TikTok to post lifestyle content. She has amassed over 2,000 followers and has brand deals with companies like Chegg. She says the change will impact a lot of people.
“Me being a small content creator, it’s going to affect me, but I know many creators that it’s their full time job and TikTok has really helped them get their life back on track,” Bright said. “Just to think about those people that this is their full time job, that they’re losing a career basically.”
The Indiana State student radio station, WZIS, uses several social media platforms, but TikTok allows them to show a different perspective. Senior Seth Berquist says there is a certain audience that will no longer be reached if the platform is banned.
“We use Instagram a lot, but that’s more just for promoting ourselves and putting our image out there,” Berquist said. “TikTok we use as more of a fun like, ‘hey, look at us doing this fun thing’. It’s really where we have a lot more creativity of what we post and it’s a lot less restricted, so we’re pretty upset that we have to let go of it.”
According to sophomore Abigail Berry, the ISU campus newspaper, The Statesman, will also have to adapt if the platform disappears.
“We have some longform content, longer videos, that are on Instagram and YouTube so we’ll probably focus more energy in that,” Berry said. “I don’t know if I’ll ever really use it personally, because TikTok is just really user-friendly and easy.”
TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, will have to sell its US assets by January 19, or the app will be banned nationwide.
