TikTok could get banned soon. Here's how one Texas teenager is responding

TikTok users around the country are saying their goodbyes.

On Friday, the Supreme Court upheld a law that would ban the popular social media app on Sunday, unless the Chinese company that owns it finds a U.S. buyer. The app has 170 million users in the U.S. — including 16-year-old Marium Zahra.

The El Paso, Texas, teen says the Supreme Court’s decision is “frightening” to her and her friends who use the app.

“We're going to be limited in so many different kinds of ways from entertainment, pop culture, politics, activism, learning about social justice and marginalized communities in a global population,” Zahra says. “TikTok is so much for us. It's really cemented itself into the online space.”

How do you use TikTok?

“ I think I've used TikTok in two ways. I've used it as a viewer and then I've also used it as a creator. So as an up-and-coming artist, I like to showcase my work on TikTok. It's given me a community of artists who I've learned from, who give me great feedback. And now hearing that I will no longer have that community is kind of scary.

“But then also as a viewer, TikTok has been so essential for me for so many news things. I think the misconception that people have about teenagers in the way that we use TikTok is that we get all of our facts from there and TikTok is the law of the land, but I don't think that's necessarily true. I think TikTok is just a social media website that fosters new ideas. And so we get ideas from there that we later research with obviously more accredited resources. But I think that's what TikTok has done for me as a viewer. It's allowed me to just get more knowledge about things happening with a global population of people.”

 When lawmakers decided that they were going to try to ban TikTok, they said they were worried about the Chinese government and the parent company that owns it using it to spy on your personal data. Do you think that was a good reason to do this? Were you satisfied as a TikTok user that that was a legitimate concern? 

“ I think the concern is a little bit with the inconsistency with the way that other apps that may have very, very similar dangers are treated. A lot of people have mentioned sites like Shein and Temu, and I would have to agree. It's a little bit hard especially when you're a student living in a state like Texas that has consistently censored us through critical race theory laws, book bannings, Black history bans, it's a little hard not to think that this has a little bit to do with censoring the youngest generation of people.”

Have you tried the app RedNote that many TikTok users are moving to?

“ I have heard about RedNote. I've also seen on Twitter that it also has a lot of censorship going on. So I'm not sure how that's going to go, but I do think TikTok has been so influential that I think it's going to take a little bit of time for a social media site to replace it and the influence that it has had. So I can only hope that we get another social media place like TikTok.”

Do you think there will be another platform similar to TikTok?

“One of the things me and my friends like to joke about is that even Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts is just TikTok two weeks later. We feel like everything originates on TikTok. And so I think it's going to take time to move everything from TikTok to another site, but I'm very hopeful that it might happen because I do know that my generation is very, very active on social media.”

How has TikTok shaped your life?

“ TikTok has been around since I was 11. I'm 16 years old now. So for the five years of my teenage life, TikTok has been around. And so saying goodbye to an app that has been so important to me and so central in my life, with my friends, with the global community of artists that I've made with people from across the world, I think it's going to be a little bit hard to say goodbye to an app like that.”

Gabrielle Healy produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Todd Mundt. Allison Hagan adapted it for the web.