On January 19th, the day before Donald Trump’s inauguration, TikTok was banned in the United States for 12 hours. Over the past few years, Donald Trump and the Republican party have been threatening to ban TikTok. To its proponents, the ban is a necessary step to stop potential foreign influence. To its critics, it’s an attempt to stifle competition and protect domestic corporate giants. As President Joe Biden warned in his farewell speech, the health of our democracy is under threat, and the TikTok ban may be a stark reminder of how far that erosion has gone. This reality started to feel eerily close as the top billionaires in the country sat front row at Trump’s inauguration. 

At first glance, the rationale for banning TikTok appears straightforward. The platform, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, allegedly poses a risk to national security by potentially sharing user data with the Chinese government. However, critics argue that the ban benefits tech giants like Meta and Google by eliminating a major competitor in the social media space. These corporations, which have faced scrutiny over data privacy practices, stand to gain from TikTok’s removal, raising questions about the true motivations behind the ban. The ban is just one example of how big corporations and wealthy elites influence our government. This isn’t how democracy is supposed to work. Policies should reflect what’s best for the majority of people, not just a handful of powerful stakeholders. 

Throughout history, oligarchies have taken various forms. An oligarchy is a system of governance where power rests in the hands of a small, elite group—often the wealthy or influential—who control key political and economic decisions. This concept dates back to ancient Greece, where philosophers like Aristotle identified oligarchies as governments ruled by the rich, contrasting them with democracies where power is shared among the many.

In the Middle Ages, European monarchies often functioned as oligarchies, with a small class of nobles wielding disproportionate power over the majority. More recently, modern nations have seen oligarchic tendencies emerge through the dominance of corporations, media conglomerates, and political elites. In the U.S., the increasing influence of corporate lobbying and campaign financing has led many to argue that our democracy is quietly transforming into an oligarchy, where the interests of a privileged few dictate policy.

The TikTok ban isn’t just about a social media app. It’s a reminder that our democracy only works if we fight for it. Pay attention to how decisions are being made and whose interests they serve. If we don’t, we risk losing the very thing that makes democracy so powerful, the idea that every voice matters.