A TikTok ban is misguided

As the co-owner of a sports marketing agency here in Minnesota, I have grown concerned with the rising tension between the government and TikTok.

TikTok has emerged as a platform of ideas, content and promotion with the ability to reach over one billion people across the globe every day. In the case of my business, we use TikTok to reach new audiences and promote the great work of our current clients. While other social media platforms offer similar capabilities, TikTok has proven to be the quintessential platform in increasing engagement for its creators, which is key for a marketing agency deciding how to best promote current clients and drive growth.

Additionally, I have several friends who have started companies in the past three to four years that have grown on the back of the TikTok platform. Had it not been for TikTok, they wouldn’t be around, and they wouldn’t have been able to create the 100-plus jobs they’ve collectively created.

Many of our clients have approached us after seeing the work we have done on behalf of a client on TikTok. Without the platform, we will lose one of our industry’s most powerful tools. While TikTok is a recent innovation, and companies thrived long before its inception, it has become an integral part of our business model.

Thirty-three states have banned TikTok in some capacity. Some have banned the app completely for all its residents, others have banned the app for state employee use, and the federal government has banned it on its devices, too.

The reasoning cited for these restrictions all circle back to national security. Isolating TikTok as a villain while other social media platforms and executives constantly face scrutiny seems disingenuous. This is not an attempt to understate the importance of national security as it relates to social media. All social media must uphold a commitment to due diligence in ensuring that data privacy and national security concerns are addressed.

Jake Kranz

To address the security concerns that all social media companies share, legislators should look to comprehensive legislation to protect our data, regardless of ownership, domestic or foreign. The current plan to ban a single app wouldn’t erase the data leak concerns of everyday Americans.

The current push to ban TikTok would have a significant impact on our business and the business of our clients. I ask our legislators at both the state and federal levels to consider the impact that restricting TikTok would have on small businesses and employees across the nation and here in Minnesota.

Jake Kranz is the co-founder and co-owner of Uncle Charlie, A Minnesota based sports marketing firm.