Since 2020, the modern economy has faced many challenges such as the raging COVID-19 pandemic, inflation rates, gun violence, high unemployment, climate change and ongoing conflicts with allies. The citizens looked to the government in hopes of finding ways to overcome these challenges. However, they were met with something unexpected– the government trying to fix these issues by banning certain social media apps. 

Instead of attempting to ban social media apps created by other countries or focus on smaller issues, the government should focus on finding solutions to larger economic problems.

In 1929 the Great Depression began and it caused many citizens to become unemployed, homeless, bankrupt and unable to afford day-to-day items. This time period is considered one of the United States’ darker moments. The U.S. suffered for quite some time before president Franklin D. Roosevelt created a series of programs to help the citizens get back on their feet and fix the economy. He created the New Deal which helped many people become employed, helped the homeless and elderly, and created a new secure banking system. Though it did take about four years for the New Deal to come, its progress helped many rapidly. Four years have passed in today’s society, the same amount of time it took Roosevelt to begin his New Deal, and not much has improved. Within four years, Roosevelt drafted ideas on how to help the economy grow and rise from its depression and in upcoming years set in motion all his acts. The only difference between their time of need and now is what caused it. The current economic downfall was caused by a pandemic spreading known as COVID-19. Many started to get sick and the government worked fast to find vaccinations and treatments. However, many lost jobs and were laid off due to having a whole economic quarantine. Citizens looked to the government for help and all that was offered were checks to supposedly help citizens, but surviving off checks can only do so much. Instead of trying to find safer ways for people to get back to work, the government attempted to shut down social media apps such as TikTok and Instagram, saying that these apps were spreading misinformation and stealing personal data.

While this was happening inflation rates rose and continue rising, and unemployment rates are still above normal. Biden’s idea to help reduce inflation rates and unemployment was to create the Inflation Reduction Act. The act is supposed to strengthen energy security, invest and create good-paying jobs, reduce energy and health care costs, and make tax codes fairer. However, this act didn’t help the inflation rates go down. These past few years the rates would lower then go up on a repeated pattern. Unemployment rates follow the same trend as inflation. 

Over the past few years, gun violence has increased due to school shootings, which have significantly also increased. The Second Amendment states that citizens have the right to bear arms, giving them the right to own them. However, the government has not been as strict as it should be when it comes to citizens handling weapons. In 1994, there was an assault weapons ban, but it became inactive in 2004. Since then, the government has been divided on whether this ban should become reactive. The Justice Department Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives proposed to reduce the number of guns sold without background checks and keep them out of criminal hands. However, congress debates yearly over this proposition. To this day the government has been iffy on what they should do about gun violence, with one side wanting to ban guns and the other wanting to keep them for self-defense and hunting. Finding ways to protect schools and keep gun violence to a minimum should be a top priority, but instead, the government is trying to get ready for the upcoming election and pushed back this topic multiple times. 

Despite the U.S. having inner economic issues, citizens have grown concerned and wonder what the government will do to help their allies and targeted countries who are at war. The Ukraine-Russian war has raged on since 2014, but in 2022, Russia decided to fully invade Ukraine and all the government could do was send money, weapons, and financial aid to the smaller country. Many citizens were using social media apps as a way to see what was happening and gather all the information they could. Many people used apps such as TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook and more. As the war continued, more and more countries started getting involved and allies started to come close to making threats. Since China agreed to partner with Russia if anything major happened, the U.S. government decided to take that as a threat and threaten, not the first time, to ban TikTok by saying it’s a China-run app and that they could use it to gather intelligence on U.S. citizens. Instead of finding other ways to send aid or help those countries who are in need, the government has been focusing on banning foreign apps.

With so many economic, and even more to come at this rate, the government should focus on bigger issues first and then focus on little problems that they deem important.