Reagan had Hostages. Trump has TikTok.

TikTok. It’s not about dancing.

I am sometimes recognized when I go out in St Joe or Kansas City or St Louis or Springfield, MO. In these places, “Are you Jess Piper?” happens and my kids get a laugh out of it.

I’m not sure why people ask if I am who I am. Maybe I look older and chubbier in real life? Likely. I am a grandmother to four and carry cookies in my purse.

I am not a celebrity of any sort. I am recognized because I have been on TikTok since 2020. I don’t dance or sing.

I am a Missouri progressive and I talk about Missouri issues and our GOP supermajority in short videos. I have trolled the Missouri GOP for four years.

For good reason.

Over the years, I have amassed almost 300K friends on TikTok. Now it’s gone and so are my followers who came to get their daily dose of smartass hot takes on our red-state lawmakers from a dirt road Democrat.

TikTok disappeared from our phones last night. The app was banned in the US after the Supreme Court allowed a ban to stand — I am more than a little suspect about the timing of the app’s demise.

A screenshot of the message all TikTok users received on January 18, 2025.

Why do I suspect something fishy is going on? Look at the message all users received: A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S. Unfortunately, that means you can't use TikTok for now. We are fortunate that President-elect Donald Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office. Please stay tuned!

Trump? The message is bizarre, but really well-timed, don’t you think?

The CEO of TikTok is expected to be at Trump’s inauguration. And Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg. And X’s Elon Musk. And Amazon’s Jeff Bezos. And Google's Sundar Pichai. The last four have already kissed the ring — they have already shown deference to Trump.

TikTok just needed to fall in line.

The timing of the ban is perfect. It went into effect under Biden. Trump can be the savior to millions of users when he gives the company a 90-day stay and then finagles an agreement to allow the app on American phones. Millions will credit Trump right around the inauguration.

Reagan had hostages. Trump has TikTok.

The TikTok ban represents the first time in history that the US government has outlawed a popular social media network, but the ban has been in talks for four years. Talk of banning the app started with Trump in 2020, but the proverbial shit hit the fan this April with a bipartisan bill to ban Tik Tok.

Why? US politicians have pointed to the data that TikTok collects. The app is open about what data it collects, with NPR reports claiming that the “amount is on par with what is harvested by apps owned by American tech companies Google, Facebook and Apple.”

They are all collecting our data and all of us understand that…when I wrote about camping in Minnesota several weeks ago, I started getting ads for sleeping bags and tents. Also a few ads for coats and flannel shirts from Duluth Trading Company. I wasn’t on TikTok…I was on Google.

I did get a new flannel, though and I love it, but that’s beside the point. Well, maybe that is the point. Was I duped by Google? I have free will, but I was shown items that were curated by algorithms and AI to tempt me. They know me.

We all know this could be much more dangerous than buying a flannel.

I am a mom to five — three boys and two girls. I am also white, and my children are as well. A big part of my job in raising white boys was watching their online behavior. White boys are under constant threat of being radicalized online — I watched their games and looked at their searches and listened to their podcasts and I talked to them. I know for a fact that an unsuspecting young white man could log-in to YouTube to watch a podcast or even a how-to video on fixing a dirt bike and be down a White Supremacist rabbit hole in minutes.

Minutes.

There is danger online…there always has been and TikTok can be as dangerous as YouTube. Both can take people down dangerous paths. But there is no talk of banning YouTube. Or Facebook. Or Instagram. Or X. Or so many apps collecting our data.

TikTok is owned by a Chinese company. The argument is that the Chinese government could be collecting our data for nefarious reasons. I don’t know. It feels like a free-speech violation.

Free-speech group PEN America attacked the Supreme Court's decision:

"Restricting access to foreign media is a hallmark of repressive governments, and we should always be wary when national security is invoked to silence speech," the advocacy group said in a statement on Friday.

When the ban went into effect last night, thousands of small business owners who used TikTok as a marketplace lost their livelihood.

For people like me, I lost my voice. I can no longer speak to those folks who consume news in bite-sized pieces unless they migrate to another app.

On TikTok, I was able to tell folks in my state what was going on in our state. I was able to track Missouri GOP bills and legislation and let my community know about the bills and tell them how to contact their lawmakers to stop bad legislation. I told Missourians about marches and rallies and special sessions and committee hearings. All in 60 second videos that were easy to digest and easy to share.

I have a feeling this ban won’t last long, but I am not sure if I want to go back once TikTok has kissed the ring.

I left nearly 160K people on X when Elon was able to produce the results he wanted in this last election. Elon poisoned the once useful Twitter. I am fearful that whatever poison pill TikTok swallows to stay in the American market could make the app as useless as X.

For now, I am here to write long-form content on the same issues. Maybe my TikTok family will navigate to Substack?

In the meantime, I am glad you are here, friend. I will continue to show my community and state what happens under a GOP supermajority and in Trump’s America.

No dancing required.

~Jess