The News in New Media

The Banning of TikTok

An analysis of the initial reactions of people as the threat to the beloved app develops:

Authors: Emma Katherine Grech & Will Henderson

On the morning of September 18th, 2020 the news broke that President Trump and his administration were signing an executive order to ban the downloading of TikTok taking effect just two days later on September 20th. This announcement comes after month-long rumors that the Chinese app would be banned in the United States in order to protect National Security, according to Trump. There has been an explosion in posts after the news came out, over 1.4 million posts in less than two days, up 6% from normal. 

Most of the posts surrounding the topic came from Twitter, 85.9% to be exact, and there was also conversation on Forums and on YouTube concerning the topic. The conversation is happening all over the globe with 9.2% posts coming from Japan and many other countries such as Brazil and the United Kingdom. The conversation is also happening in many different languages with only 52% of the posts being in English showing that even though this mostly affects the U.S., it is a topic that is gone viral. The hashtag #tiktokban has been trending on Twitter all of the day on Friday. The sentiment was 61.7% negative and after analyzing the top posts it is clear that people are not happy about Trump’s decision to ban the app that is loved by so many. 

It will be interesting to see this story unfold and if U.S and China’s TikTok will be able to come to an agreement by November 12th to save the app from being gone completely. Although this is already being talked about I am sure it will continue as the ban takes affect and as we get closer to the complete ban of the app. 

 

Full Analysis: 

 Topic of The Week: 9/18/20 

Purpose: To analyze the thoughts surrounding the ban of downloading TikTok in the United States by an executive order from the Trump administration set to take effect by Sunday, September 20th. 

Analysis Time Frame: September 17th 2020-September 18th 2020 

Overall Trends 

Social Studio 

– Huge spike in the conversation started Friday morning around 10 a.m. September 18th after the news broke. 

– Most of the conversation is happening on Twitter, 85.9% of posts on this topic were on Twitter. 12.9% of posts were on YouTube and it is being talked about a little bit on other forms of internet communities. 

– Although it is getting banned in the United States, only 19.2% of the conversation is known to be coming from the US. 9.2% of the posts are coming from Japan. However, 53.5% of the posts were in English and around 9.3% of posts were in Japanese. 

– The sentiment following this morning’s announcement is very negative, people appear to be upset about the beloved app actually being banned. The overall sentiment was 56.3% negative. 

– There is a question on what the famous “TikTokers” will do if the app gets shut down after November 12th 

Keyword Group 

  • Keyword Group 1: “tiktok”, “tictok”, “tik” AND “tok”, “#tiktokban”, “tiktok” AND “ban”. 
    • Impact: 1.1 Million total posts in two days

Popular Words
#tiktokban 

  • This hashtag has been trending on Twitter and has become a source of many of the backlash surrounding the Trump Administrations decision to ban downloads of the app 
  • There are many posts that are bashing Trump for the ban insisting that it is against our freedom or that he is doing it for his own good 

Pandemic 

  • Many posts are those who are upset about the Tik Tok ban after it has helped so many people find happiness during 2020 and the pandemic 
  • People are also concerned with the idea that Trump should be focusing his time and attention on the Pandemic instad of Tik Tok 

Facebook 

  • Many posts are calling out Facebook and their previous privacy infringements to make the point that if TikTok is being banned than Facebook should be too. 
  • Facebook was known for skewing data for the 2016 election with Cambridge Analytica and on social media, people have not forgotten that. 

Top Influencers 

  • 47NEWS(@47news)—98/100 
  • 9to5Mac.com(@9to5mac)–98/100 
  • A N G E L (@AngeldebritoOK)—98/100 
  • AajTak (@aajtak)—98/100 
  • ABC News (@ABC)—98/100 
  • ABP News (@ABPNews)—98/100 

What were the influencers saying?

  • Most of the news sources were breaking the news which broke Friday morning September 18th, 2020 
  • Many of the top influencers for this data were posts in a different language
  • ABC News posted about an interview with a TikTok spokesperson who told them that they were going to continue to challenge Trump’s decision

Sentiment

  • The sentiment from this topic was majority negative at 61.7%, therefore positive sentiment was 38.3%. 
  • There was a huge spike in negative sentiment Friday morning, September 18th following the news. People immediately took to social media to post about their frustrations with the ban.
  • It is clear with the negative spike that people are extremely unhappy with the executive order and are not concerned with the threat to national security that Trump claims it is.
  • The posts that were claimed “positive” weren’t excited about the ban of TikTok is was more neutral posts.

 



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