How Safe Is TikTok?

The answer largely depends on your definition of safe. Safe for users, or safe for the state? Or both? I don’t use TikTok, have not signed up with the app, and have no intention of doing so. Why? With so many distractions today, yet another banal diversion would drive me crazy. But it’s much more than that. For many of the younger generation, TikTok has become a way of life that many simply cannot live without. Yes, read that again…

Is TikTok A Threat To National Security?

Recent reports have suggested that under the US threat of banning TikTok Stateside, death threats have been sent to congressmen and women and their staff, such is the furor created by such a suggestion. Yet one wonders how many of the younger users know that the company is owned by ByteDance and is based in China. Would they even care? The big question that worries many governments is how much data is being harvested by TikTok and if that data is being passed on to the Chinese government. These worries have resulted in calls to have TikTok divested by ByteDance and sever its links with the Chinese Communist party. From what I understand, ByteDance has been given a time limit to comply or face the threat of banning the app in the USA. In fact, a bill is being reviewed by the US House of Representatives this week and is expected to be passed to the Senate with President Biden saying that he would sign off on a ban if Congress approved it. It’s worth noting that the previous US administration was hell-bent on banning TikTok, but it appears that the leader of said ex-administration has now flip-flopped on the idea. On the other hand, banning TikTok collides directly with First Amendment rights as enshrined in the US Constitution, so there would be fireworks.

Furthermore, ex-Activision boss, Bobby Kotick is said to have floated the idea of buying TikTok from ByteDance following his golden parachute payment of $15 million when Microsoft recently bought Activision for $68 billion. However, TikTok is said to be worth several billion.

Does TikTok Idealise A Perfect World Agenda?

Like many social media apps, TikTok attracts influencers who like to project a perfect image and through product sponsorship are able to ditch their day jobs and dedicate their entire waking moments to banal video shorts of which their followers seemingly cannot contemplate life without. Without wishing to sound like a miserable old codger, yes there are plenty of amusing videos on TikTok with over 2 billion users said to be viewing and uploading. However, most are either fake or disposable trash.

To quote a famous Australian TikTok influencer, @roryeliza, with over 7 million followers, “Every young kid’s dream is to get successful online and there’s definitely a group where they all want to be influencers, ’cause it’s kind of the in-thing now.” Most up-coming influencers on TikTok are recording virtually every nauseating moment of their lives, from what they had for breakfast to which clothes and make-up they plan to use, simply to get famous. Many would argue that TikTok is simply harmless fun, but with so many followers emulating their idols and some even translating that to the real world, dangerous pranks, the virtual world that so many now exist in, becomes a real-world problem.

Dangerous TikTok Challenges

Tommie-Lee Gracie Billington, an 11-year-old British child died last week after inhaling toxic fumes from an aerosol can in a TikTok challenge known as chroming. Other young children have died as a result of this challenge, often involving other dangerous fumes. But that’s not all – numerous other TikTok challenges exist, including hot-wiring cars, totalling them and returning the wrecked car to the owner, licking toilet seats and ice cream (without buying the product), placing coins between wall sockets and phone chargers just to watch the sparks and many other idiotic, lethal pranks.

With many attention spans now becoming degraded to just a few milliseconds, aka TikTok Time, one can’t help worrying about the state of humanity, quite frankly.

Update

• The US House of Representatives has passed a bill that could lead to a nationwide ban on TikTok
• It would require the Chinese tech giant ByteDance to sell its stake in the app within six months or face a ban from US app stores and web hosting platforms

—