Update on TikTok: My thoughts on the recent news regarding the application

And welcome to The Chronicles of Trevor, the only blog that doesn't violate the 1st Amendment, by letting everyone comment!

Today, I'm sharing my opinions on the US House of Representatives' passing of a bill directed at TikTok and its Beijing-based parent company ByteDance Technologies Co., Ltd.

This bill is not a ban. It just asks ByteDance to divest TikTok's operations to an American company, or face a nationwide ban.

A lot of people are confusing this bill as a full-on ban, saying that it would "ViOlAtE FiRsT AmEnDmENt RiGHtS". If it actually gets banned, it wouldn't actually violate the free speech rights, since Meta and Google have people covered in terms of alternatives, with Facebook/Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts, respectively, and Elon Musk, through X, says that he wants to bring back Vine, so there's another option.

On the other hand, TikTok only has 180 days to be divested or it'll be banned. If it does get acquired by a US company, I'd see a logo change happening, since the eighth-note icon currently used by the app is also used by a China-exclusive app, which TikTok is based on, called Douyin, also owned by ByteDance. The eighth-note design only works in terms of that app, since Douyin roughly translates as "shaking sound", hence why the note has the red and blue trails. That design was also inspired by the way decorations vibrate at a concert. If the note was inspired by sound-wave vibrations, shouldn't the note's trails be gray?

I'd want to see something like this:

This is my own design. I decided to use a clock design, since the app's name just calls out for one. I made the clock hands T's, as a slight nod to the name's not-so-widely-used abbreviation, TT. And as a cherry on top, It uses the colors from the original note logo. If they sell to a US company, why not hit me up and I could give them this masterpiece for a reasonable cost!

But other than that, I am supportive of this bill, and I would like either one of these options go through.

So to recap, I would love to see it either get sold to a US company, complete with a new logo, or under extreme measures, get banned.