The popular social media app TikTok has been controversial ever since its creation. They have been accused of promoting dangerous challenges, allowing user data breaches by the Chinese government, and even facing lawsuits for harming and failing to protect young users. The attorneys against TikTok call out their addictive content recommendation system and their focus on profits over safety.
All these anti-TikTok believers fail to see that it is not TikTok’s fault. It is yours.
It is the user’s fault because according to FastCompany, it has been proven that up to 50% of the content put on your For You page is based on past interests. It is undeniable that TikTok has an algorithm that exploits data collected from how you watch each video to supply you with more videos that are for you. Many of the people against TikTok like to use the word exploit when describing the algorithm which is often taken in a negative connotation, but it should not be. Why should TikTok just give me random videos that do not interest me? You could look at it as profits over safety but for an everyday TikTok user, like myself and almost everybody in this school, it is obvious that they are not putting anything over safety, it is simply necessary for entertainment.
It is also not TikTok’s fault because it is a parent’s responsibility to protect their children and set their own boundaries that they deem safe for whatever age their child is. TikTok has no way to prevent children from lying about their age to access their app, but neither does any other social media app. TikTok does offer a Kids Mode for young users, but that requires the child to be truthful about their age. This all sounds like good evidence against TikTok’s algorithm but none of this would be a problem if the parents did their job as parents to keep their kids safe. There are many methods these parents can use to limit or restrict TikTok that will keep their children safe.
Those opposing it would argue that they do not feel their information is safe on TikTok. This is understandable as lately, TikTok has been all over the national media for President Biden’s signing of a TikTok ban. This bill forces ByteDance, Tiktok’s parent company, until January 2025 to sell the app to a non-foreign company or TikTok will be removed from all app stores in the United States. When the president seems to be worried about TikTok, so will many other Americans. However, there is no need to fear your data on TikTok any more than other social media apps. There are many reasons to back this up such as the fact that they are forced to follow many global privacy laws and they have been partnering with United States-based companies, like Oracle, to store their information domestically. It is important to remember that many stories in the media are overblown. As TikTok is being blasted with all of these accusations, there has not been any real evidence that there has been any data exposed to China.
To solve this mess of an issue, I call parents of children under 13 years old to have a serious conversation with them about how TikTok can expose them to explicit content. Another solution is to not allow your kids on social media until they reach that age. Even after 13, if you still do not think your child is safe from the internet, talk to other parents and help each other find solutions to your problem, not TikTok.
