(Times of Update) — Americans are less supportive of a potential ban on TikTok than they were 18 months ago, according to a new poll conducted ahead of the government’s deadline next year to force a sale or ban the app from U.S. users.
Times of Update’s most read articles
According to Pew Research survey data released Thursday, only 32% of American adults support a ban on TikTok. Pew found that 38% of American adults supported a ban last fall and 50% supported it in March 2023.
At the same time, half of Americans now doubt TikTok will be banned, calling it “very or somewhat unlikely.”
The survey found that many Americans have changed their minds about TikTok over the past 18 months, including in the past five months since President Joe Biden signed a bill requiring TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance Ltd., to divest its stake in the app or face a ban in the country. U.S. lawmakers have said they are concerned about potential privacy and security issues related to TikTok’s Chinese ownership.
The survey did not ask respondents why their opinion changed. Former President Donald Trump, who tried to ban TikTok while in office in 2020, publicly changed his mind about the app and created an account earlier this year. Vice President Kamala Harris, who is running against Trump for president, has also used the app to campaign for the November U.S. election. Despite signing the bill that could eventually ban the app, Biden has also created an account.
Researchers found that opinions on the app remain divided along party lines. Republicans and Republican-leaning independents are more likely to believe TikTok threatens national security and are nearly twice as likely to support a ban than Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, Pew found. Even so, support for the ban has fallen by nearly 20 percentage points within each party since March 2023.
ByteDance has until January to sell the app or face a ban in the US under the law signed by Biden. That deadline can be extended by 90 days if a sale appears to be in the works, and legal action could further delay the ban from taking effect. TikTok has filed a lawsuit in the US to try to reverse the law.
Pew surveyed 10,658 adults from July 15 to Aug. 4. The results have a margin of error of plus or minus 1.2 percentage points.
©2024 Times of Update LP
