BOZEMAN — On Friday, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld a law that could effectively ban TikTok in the United States, prioritizing the government's national security concerns over the First Amendment rights of the company and its 170 million users.
MTN's Cassidy Powers and Meghan Elaine went to Montana State University to see how students felt about the looming ban.
"I am glad it's going away because I can get a lot of my stuff done,” says one student.
Still others say they won't miss the app.
"I deleted it. In my free time, I would sit down and doom scroll," says freshman Claire.
According to Merriam-Webster's dictionary, doomscrolling is “to spend excessive time online scrolling through news or other content that makes one feel sad, anxious, angry, etc.”
Although Claire deleted the app, she still understands why some folks will miss it.
"I think it is like some people's income, which is kind of crazy," Claire says.
Grace Elden is a professional skier and TikTok content creator.
"I think it's crazy. I was honestly shocked to find out it's actually going through," Elden says.
She is commonly known on TikTok and Instagram as @Graceshreds.
Grace has shredded her way into multiple brand deals and left her mark in the digital ski community.
"I started making 15-second Instagram and TikTok reels, just kind of showing off tricks and just kind of having fun with my friends in the park, and those videos took off," Grace says.
With nearly 40,000 followers, it's no surprise that she says, "I make about $5,000 a month doing TikTok content."
We asked Grace how the TikTok ban would affect her financially.
"So that is kind of a significant blow there. I will lose a couple of brand deals that are strictly TikTok reel only," she says.
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Grace is not alone. According to a study by Oxford Economics, 8,000 businesses actively use TikTok in Montana.
Over half of these small businesses say TikTok is critical to their business.
So why's it being banned?
Mitch Price has managed risk and critical infrastructure in government for nearly 30 years.
"What strikes me is that the U.S. government, for quite some time now, has made a very public campaign to ban TikTok," Price says.
He says TikTok poses a national security threat.
"They are very concerned that TikTok has the capability to compromise sensitive information from a national security standpoint, from a private sector standpoint, from a research and development standpoint, and so on," Price says.
Lawmakers have worried that ByteDance could share user data with the Chinese government.
"Social security number, date of birth, your financial information, your proprietary information if you're an entrepreneur or businessperson, that type of thing. Your intellectual property," Price says.
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Sitting at home, many of you may think you're safe if you don't use the app; however, the Pew Research Center states that a third of U.S. adults use TikTok.
"It may not affect you directly, but at some point in the future it could, through indirect means, impact all of us," Price says.
But for the folks using this app for their finances or fun?
"Being a phone user and signing up for a million different websites and just being on the internet poses that threat," Grace says.
This ideology is something we noticed social media users can agree with.
"Everyone in the world can hack anything at any time; everything is out there once you post something and Google something," one MSU student says.
On the other hand, the ban has some people feeling hopeful.
"Read a book! Go touch some grass, I don't know,” freshman Claire says.
