Roughly 43 percent of Connecticut residents support a ban on the social media platform TikTok according to a recent survey, the second highest rate in the nation.
Nearly as many people oppose as support the ban, according to a study from the technology website HostingAdvice. 41.2 percent of Connecticut residents oppose the ban, while 43.1 percent support it, and a further 15.2 percent are neutral. Only Rhode Island has a higher rate of support, at 43.5 percent. Mississippi had the lowest rate of support for banning TikTok, at 10.2 percent.
According to Start.io, there are just under 29,500 TikTok users in Connecticut. 47.3 percent of those users are between the ages of 18 and 24 and 38.6 are between the ages of 25 and 34.
The federal government passed legislation in April 2024 that forces ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese parent company, to sell the platform to a company not owned by China by January 18, 2025. If ByteDance does not sell TikTok, the platform will be banned in the United States. The move follows a 2023 government directive that banned use of the app on government devices.
Supporters of the ban have cited concern that ByteDance is giving the Chinese government access to user-generated data. The ban’s detractors have raised First Amendment concerns about the move.
ByteDance has not taken any action to sell the app because it has already challenged the law in a federal appeals court, which has fast-tracked the case.
Connecticut Attorney General William Tong has previously challenged TikTok’s practices. In September 2023, Tong joined a coalition of 46 states seeking to force TikTok, Inc. to comply with an investigation into whether the app had violated consumer protection laws. That investigation is still active.
The attorney general’s office told Inside Investigator it has not considered whether it will take any action in the federal case against TikTok at this time.
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