TikTok and Teens: Guest Column

Social Media,

Congress is considering banning the Chinese government-controlled social media platform TikTok. For some, this ban is about national security. For others, it’s about the safety and sanity of our children.  

Today, nearly half of all teens use social media “almost constantly.” Sixty-three percent of them use TikTok, making it the second most used social media platform behind YouTube. 

Some claim that banning TikTok could lead to catastrophic consequences for teens’ mental health. For many teens, according to one Twitter user, “TikTok is their identity.” In other words, they’re addicted, so losing it could lead to mental distress. 

Such an abrupt shift may certainly cause distress, but social media has long fueled anxiety and depression. As Jean Twenge has noted, teens who spend more time behind screens are at a higher risk for depression.  

Thankfully, teens are more than their online personas, likes, follows, or friends. They are embodied persons whose happiness and wholeness depend on living in the real world. Any effort to help them do that is a step in the right direction. 

Copyright 2024 by the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. Reprinted from BreakPoint.org with permission.

READ MORE

Florida Passes Law Prohibiting Social Media for Children Under 14

Social Media, ,

On Monday Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed legislation prohibiting minors under age 14 from registering social media accounts. The law is slated to take effect next year.

Across the board, policymakers are wrestling with how to keep kids safe online.

Researchers have found the algorithms on social media platforms like TikTok actually serve teens what some call a steady “diet of darkness” online.

Last year, lawmakers in Arkansas enacted the Social Media Safety Act — a good law by Sen. Tyler Dees (R – Siloam Springs) and Rep. Jon Eubanks (R – Paris) requiring major social media companies to ensure minors don’t access social media platforms without parental consent. A social media company that violated the law could be held liable. Tech giants — including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok — as well as the ACLU are fighting that law in court.

The Arkansas Attorney General’s office is pushing back by suing TikTok and the company that owns Facebook and Instagram.

The A.G.’s lawsuits cite evidence that the platforms’ algorithms promote objectionable content to children.

Social media platforms aren’t just websites. They are multimillion dollar businesses owned and operated by adults.

The adults who operate these social media platforms should not be able to register children as users and let children post photos and videos of themselves on their platforms without — at the very least — parental consent. 

As we have said before, there’s mounting evidence that social media puts users’ personal information at risk is designed to push objectionable content to users. With that in mind, it’s good to see policymakers taking action to protect children online.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

READ MORE

Protecting Americans From Malign Foreign Influence

Social Media,

As social media becomes more integral to our daily lives, the need for security to protect Americans from foreign adversaries online has become increasingly prevalent. Bad actors, like the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), have taken advantage of the growing U.S. footprint online by utilizing Chinese-owned apps, like TikTok, to target, surveil, and manipulate Americans.

Although TikTok executives claim that it does not share any data collected by the app, there are several Chinese laws in place that provide CCP officials access to all user data collected by Chinese-owned tech companies, like TikTok. This means the CCP has access to sensitive data, like the location of every TikTok user worldwide, including the over 210 million Americans who have downloaded the app.

I’ve received a handful of classified security briefings regarding the data collected by apps like TikTok, and it’s been made abundantly clear that the U.S. must act quickly to protect the American people from our adversaries online, whether on TikTok or any other app controlled by the CCP, Russia, Iran, Venezuela, or North Korea. I voted yes to pass the Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, bipartisan legislation to prohibit U.S. app stores and web services from hosting apps controlled by U.S. foreign adversaries. 

Despite deliberate fear-mongering campaigns from TikTok, this bill does not outright ban TikTok or other social media platforms. Instead, it gives TikTok a clear choice: sever ties with their CCP-managed company or face prohibition in U.S. app stores and web-based services. This bill allows TikTok and other similar apps six months to divest from its CCP-based entity and sell the app to a buyer without ties to another authoritarian regime. The bill in no way restricts free speech or violates the 1st Amendment; it regulates business conduct related to national security concerns, it does not regulate or limit the type of content being posted.

Americans’ phones are being used as weapons against us, and I will not sit by and let that happen. The bipartisan support behind this bill should be a testament to the very real national security threat of apps controlled by our adversaries like the CCP. This bill is a targeted approach to address this threat and get the CCP, Iran, North Korea, and other bad actors out of the pockets of millions of Americans. I urge my colleagues in the Senate to advance it expeditiously.

Congressman Westerman represents Arkansas’ Fourth Congressional District. This article originally appeared here.

READ MORE