New Report Reveals the Ugly Truth About TikTok
By Movieguide® Contributor
An extensive new report revealed that TikTok is knowingly ruining users’ mental health and enabling predators to reach kids all for the sake of profits.
State investigators probed the company for two years, uncovering harrowing internal policies that exposed TikTok’s true feelings for its users. The investigation has resulted in 13 state Attorneys General along with the District of Columbia suing the company for its illegal acts.
In March of 2023, TikTok added a one-hour time limit that was enabled by default for minor’s accounts. While this decision received positive publicity and was touted as a significant step to stem social media addiction, TikTok found it had a negligible impact on the time spent on the app. The time limit dropped the average usage per day from 108.5 minutes per day down to 107 minutes per day.
During an internal meeting around the time the time limit tool was released, a project manager revealed the tool was being released to improve “public trust in the TikTok platform via media coverage… Our goal is not to reduce the time spent [on the app].”
Rather than work to reduce addiction, as the company has publicly claimed, higher-ups at TikTok have celebrated the addictive power their algorithm holds, especially over younger users. 95% of smartphone users under the age of 17 currently use TikTok monthly and the company has consciously chosen to allow children under the age of 13 to remain on the app, unless their age is explicitly stated. A TikTok executive has touted the fact that the app disrupts young users’ lives, keeping them from “sleep, and eating, and moving around the room, and looking at someone in the eyes.”
TikTok has further placed its young users at risk by purposely promoting beauty trends and boosting “attractive users” feeding the insecurities felt by young teens and adults.
“Beauty filters have been especially harmful to young girls,” explained New York Attorney General Letitia James. “Beauty filters can cause body image issues and encourage eating disorders, body dysmorphia, and other health-related problems.”
The investigation has prompted 14 Attorneys Generals to sue TikTok for repeatedly and intentionally placing its users at harm.
“TikTok intentionally targets children because they know kids do not yet have the defenses or capacity to create healthy boundaries around addictive content,” said California Attorney General Rob Bonta in a statement. “TikTok must be held accountable for the harms it created in taking away the time — and childhoods — of American children.”
While the investigation is extremely damning for TikTok, a change in the company’s policies may, at this point, prove the be irrelevant as the company faces a nationwide ban that would go into effect on January 19, 2025. The ban, however, is currently facing scrutiny in court and it remains unclear if it will eventually be shot down.
Movieguide® previously reported:
TikTok is doing all it can to avoid being banned on Jan. 19, 2025.
Earlier this year, President Biden signed the Protecting Americans’ Data From Foreign Adversaries Act of 2024 into law.
However, to fight the potential ban, eight TikTok creators announced that they are suing, “arguing that the measure would strip them of their livelihoods and creative outlets,” per The Verge.
Now, “The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ordered the case set for oral arguments in September after TikTok, ByteDance and a group of TikTok content creators joined with the Justice Department earlier this month in asking the court for a quick schedule,” the New York Post reported.
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