The case against TikTok

I don’t think any of us are laboring under the illusion that social media is, on balance, an especially good thing for our kids, but a recent study by the watchdog group the oversight project, unearthed allegedly secret documents from Tiktok corporate, and the findings are somehow both shocking and just really not a sampling of the discoveries obtained over the course of a two year investigation that resulted in Kentucky officials initiating a lawsuit against The company. Include Tiktok determined that there were a quote high number of underage users stripping on camera in return for gifts, gifts, in this case, meaning real money that has been changed into digital currency in the form of flowers, plush animals, that kind of thing. Addiction to the platform occurs in under 35 minutes. That is a precise number that Tiktok quantified internally. The algorithm at Tiktok is overtly manipulated to prioritize content by users determined to be physically attractive, one assumes, according to a somewhat narrow Eurocentric, Eurocentric definition of, you know, visually appearing people, apps intended to reduce usage amongst children and teens, those that let parents set time limits, for example. To make a long story short, I guess they found they don’t really work. And finally, 95% of underage smartphone owners use Tiktok at least once a month 95% there’s a lot in there that should elicit concern, most notably that Tiktok was aware of these issues internally and failed to address them in any meaningful way. But that 95% statistic, I find it especially striking, because 95% is awfully close to 100% and what numbers like that amount to is market saturation. There’s just nowhere else to go to get more customers, unless you push the envelope. Get them started younger, get them addicted faster, shape them into lifetime users. It’s more or less the same strategy McDonald’s used with Happy Meals. Introduce the food at a young age through various age appropriate incentivizing strategies, and they are yours. McDonald’s employed figurines. Tiktok uses digital coins shaped like cute flowers. I mean, it’s been done before. This targeting of our children for capitalist benefits, but perhaps not quite on this scale, and with not quite the same potential to devastate check.

So like I said, these findings are, I mean, I guess they’re shocking, but more than that, they are depressingly unsurprising. It’s mostly just disappointing to learn, once again, that the adults in the room knew what was happening to the kids the whole time they just didn’t care. I.