This article is one of the winning submissions from the first annual New York Post Scholars Contest, presented by Command Education.
How much can we truly trust TikTok? With rumors flying about spying Chinese blimps and stolen personal data, TikTok’s presence in society is becoming increasingly more dangerous.
While we can all agree that TikTok is perfect for reaching consumers with niche, bite-sized content, videos of this length can actually end up doing more harm than good. The volume and frequency of content makes it hard for TikTok to regulate every video posted, which raises concern since over 67% of teens use the app.
Our teens are exposed to content harmful to their growing minds. When I asked my classmates about the types of negative videos that pop up on their feeds, they spoke about an array of topics such as beauty standards, discriminatory hate, cyberbullying, fake news and the promotion of violence.
When young girls open TikTok, they are often faced with the sensitive discussion of eating disorders. Experiencing it firsthand, my classmate Maddie sees “health-promoting” creators post videos of what they eat in a day, with amounts of food that aren’t sustainable for the growing bodies of teenage girls. “They’ll purposefully record on a day where they eat nothing. They’ll eat a little bowl of oatmeal and a side of fruit in the morning, then they’ll have a glass of Bloom. For lunch, they’ll have a little side salad, and then they won’t have dinner,” Maddie said. As soon as they click “post” on these videos, the inevitable comparison between the young consumer and the creator’s food intake begins. Although the intention may be to promote healthy living, the message is twisted into a glorification of eating disorders. In January, TikTok received $4.3 million in profits from weight loss ads.
When I asked another one of my classmates what type of hateful information he has seen spread on TikTok, he immediately identified antisemitism. “They’re saying that Jews control the world, that Jews control things like the weather and other untrue things like that,” he said. Sharing false information with the youth is extremely dangerous. Teenagers’ minds are still developing and forming opinions, so when potent hate messages are shared with them, they may be unaware of the information’s harmfulness and complete unreliability.
The algorithm used by TikTok only compounds this hate by exposing users to more harmful content, perpetuating a cycle of negativity. Because of the way the algorithm works, users who interact with these types of videos will continue to see them, whether it’s destructive to their mental health or not. Because it attempts to make content specific to the user, the algorithm puts blinders on consumption. If a user watches a video promoting antisemitism or eating disorders, the algorithm assumes that the user wants to see more content like that. This exposes viewers to an umbrella of hate content, including transphobia, homophobia, racism, xenophobia, misogyny and more destructive topics.
The dangers of the algorithm are overshadowed due to its ability to perfectly shape the user’s interests—hence the name, “For You page.” For example, I’m reading The Crucible in English class, and I am obsessed with Taylor Swift. The algorithm took note of both of these interests and placed a video relating Taylor Swift and The Crucible on my For You page. While at the surface level, the specificity of the algorithm is impressive, it’s important to note who owns all of this personal data. TikTok is owned by a Beijing-based company, ByteDance. Because ByteDance is a Chinese company, the Chinese government has access to the information TikTok holds.
Having such a large amount of personal data belonging to anyone but ourselves is harmful, but when it is in the hands of another country’s government, a genuine problem emerges. Giving China access to this data allows them to better their economy by profiting off the sales of app users’ personal information. Additionally, the Chinese government could have the ability to control what is presented to young Americans on the For You page. According to Congress and the FBI, TikTok poses a real national threat.
TikTok has become a platform that nurtures the spread of false information. A lot of the current news shared on the platform is often on sensitive and pressing topics. There are countless accounts dedicated to sharing quick snippets of current news, yet their information is often biased, rarely credible, and largely excludes the important context needed to understand the whole picture. A lot of important details necessary to understand the event are commonly excluded, as the creators aim to keep viewers stimulated in a short span of time. When teenagers are presented with this information they assume it has been verified since it’s being shared and viewed by thousands of users.
Most parents are unaware of Tik Tok’s many faults, and the teenagers who experience it firsthand brush it off. Fans of the app have villainized Congress’s discussions of banning TikTok. Teenagers in American society are so infatuated with this app that they choose to continue to expose themselves to the dangers rather than support the attempts to ban it. Additionally, calls to ban the app have not panned out because TikTok turns a profit for many corporations and creators. The app’s widespread access has provided creators with full time jobs as influencers, and given brands new methods of exposure.
Can we truly trust our children to fend for themselves on an app that doesn’t look out for their best interests? If we allow TikTok to remain in the hands of teenagers, it will become an increasingly dangerous presence.
A 10th-grader at the Horace Mann School in the Bronx, Vukhac aspires to be a journalist.