The digital Iron Curtain: how the TikTok ban reflects a fractured world

Surveillance paranoia and geopolitical divides — how TikTok became a battleground in the new digital iron curtain.

Cast your mind back to your first interaction with TikTok. For me, it was the knowledge that it was popular for street dance routines. Then, my teenage students started mentioning in class loads of viral videos, especially silly Donald Trump memes and videos, circa 2018.

I’ve always maintained a passive curiosity towards it, though I have never actively used it, apart from when I'm working. Students have used it to present cultural insights, and there’s no doubt there’s a sense of collective consciousness among Gen Z when it comes to meme culture.

During the pandemic, the use of the app exploded, and cultural movements like #metoo, Black Lives Matter, and Climate Activism helped promote inclusivity and self-broadcasting. Self-expression be blessed, and right-wing values be damned.

Around 2021, when the app was at its peak, securing a billion users, it slotted alongside all the socials on an industry level. The divide between generations was lessened, and TikTok started to become universal and super-relevant.

But soon, nations like Pakistan and Indonesia began to repeatedly ban and unban TikTok throughout this time due to immoral content postings – the conversation regarding the ethics of the content on the platform had begun.

ByteDance offered to make adjustments out of respect for the regional customs, but it was to no avail, as bans were also put in places like Bangladesh and Afghanistan.

The global turning point was when India banned the app in 2021. Then, the world began to wake up. Regulatory scrutiny began to take hold as privacy concerns started to be raised about data sharing, hoarding, and harvesting.

While viral videos expressing one's opinion is a virtuous thing in and of itself, the dialogue shifted to “brain rot” around 2022, a word that later became Oxford’s word of the year in 2024.

There seemed to be yet another generational divide, with youngsters glamourising brain rot, whereas more seasoned social media users were raising concerns.

AI-generated content, coupled with fake viral trends like suffocating yourself in “the blackout challenge” and “plastic surgery transformation,” brought about fierce debate about the ethics of the platform.

The Biden administration raised questions about China and its penchant for surveillance, especially as relations between the US and China worsened, both during and post-pandemic, hence the divides becoming more geopolitical, with undertones of the cold war era.

The US House Foreign Affairs Committee began its legislative targeting of TikTok to ban it in February 2023. A month later, the restrictive legislation was set in motion, stating that ByteDance had to divest TikTok as it posed a national security risk.

By this point, TikTok has become entangled in a political quagmire that will rumble on for quite a while, even if it is saved at the last hour.

As users recently whispered “goodbye to their digital spy”, echoes of the suspicious surveillance age of the 1950’s-80’s have come about once again.

As countries close in on themselves and speculation mounts on what’ll happen next with US and China relations, we present you the digital iron curtain:

List of countries where it is banned

• India
• Afghanistan
• Iran
• Somalia
• Nepal
• Kyrgyzstan
• Uzbekistan

Banned since the beginning

• China
• North Korea
• Syria

Banned on government devices (partial restrictions)

• US
• Canada
• UK
• EU Institutions
• Australia
• New Zealand
• France
• Belgium
• Norway
• Netherlands
• Estonia
• Denmark
• Latvia
• Taiwan