The New Frontier In the US War on TikTok: University Campuses

The bans distract from legitimate issues at hand, said Gillian Diebold of the Center for Data Innovation, including data privacy, app security and national security.

What would be more effective, she added, are measures like passing national data privacy legislation, or mandating transparency around what data is collected and enforcing end-to-end encryption on all social media apps.

“Targeting one single app is not going to make a dent in combatting these real issues,” she said. “These problems exist on every social media app out there, not just TikTok.”