United States TikTok Ban | Know Your Meme

Overview

United States TikTok Ban refers to the possible ban of the Chinese app TikTok in the United States over security concerns. In Early July, State Secretary Mike Pompeo suggested that the Trump administration is “looking at” banning the app which caused a stir on Twitter, TikTok and Reddit with many posting memes regarding their negative or positive feelings about the news.

Background

On July 6th, 2020, following a television news interview with State Secretary Mike Pompeo, Twitter user @Breaking911 tweeted, “BREAKING: Trump Administration Considers Banning TikTok, Other Chinese Social Media Apps – Pompeo” which received over 80,400 likes and 23,100 retweets in four days.

On July 7th, FoxNews uploaded a YouTube video referencing Pompeo’s interview titled, “TikTok says user data isn’t sent to China despite concerns from Pompeo” (shown below). The video garnered over 38,700 views and 1,200 likes in three days.

Spread

On July 7th, 2020, following the news of the possible ban Twitter user @thsedays tweeted, “no because if tik tok actually gets banned wtf am i gonna do with all my free time” (shown below, left). The tweet accumulated over 15,800 likes and 2,600 retweets in three days. That same day, many Redditors commented on the news with memes celebrating the possible ban. Redditor JustSomeGuy_Idk posted a meme to r/dankmemes suggesting it’s the best news 2020 has had (shown below, right). The post acquired over 5,600 points (95% upvoted) in three days.

On July 8th, 2020, Mike Pompeo clarified his remarks by saying that the United States government is working on taking action to protect information (shown below). The video uploaded to YouTube by CNBC garnered over 51,800 views in two days.

#SaveTikTok

On July 8th, 2020, TikTokers started the hashtag #SaveTikTok and created videos about attempting to convince the government to not ban the app or uploading videos that take a look back at the history of TikTok. That day, TikToker kenuhchez uploaded a video in which he reviewed all the characters he made on the app and used the hashtag #savetiktok (shown below, left). The video garnered over 138,600 likes in two days. That day benhouselog uploaded a video about banning together to save TikTok and received over 492,200 likes in two days (shown below, center). The next day, TikToker pixtheartist used the hashtag to make a video about the history of TikTok and accumulated over 115,200 likes in a day (shown below, right). StayHipp published an article on the #SaveTikTok trend.

Amazon Employee TikTok Ban

On July 10th, 2020, Twitter user and journalist @TaylorLorenz posted a screenshot of an email captioned, “Here’s the email Amazon sent to employees this morning banning TikTok from employee phones. ‘If you have TikTok on your device, you must remove it by 10-Jul to retain mobile access to Amazon email.'” (shown below).

Various Examples

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External References