Students Weigh in On Danger Posed by TikTok, Other Social Media Platforms

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The Wall Street Journal recently invited college students to share their opinions regarding the dangers of social media giants like TikTok as part of the paper’s Future View segment.

TikTok boasts approximately one billion users worldwide — including 135 million or more in the U.S. — making it one of the most popular social media platforms on earth.

But the platform — and its Chinese-based parent company ByteDance — have long been under fire for serving kids a steady “diet of darkness” online and struggling to protect private user data from entities in China, such as the Chinese Communist Party.

In the opinion piece, one college student notes,

Teenagers have long encountered inappropriate content on the internet, but never has it been served to them on a silver platter the way it is now. The development of the “For You” page on TikTok, Instagram and other platforms has led to users being spoon-fed a range of posts from accounts they don’t follow. Since the algorithms prioritize engaging content, a single like, share or extended viewing of an inappropriate post from an unknown source can cause a teenager’s feed to be overloaded with similar unseemly posts.

Another writes,

The only proper response to TikTok is a permanent ban. . . . It is obvious that TikTok and the Chinese Communist Party behind it aren’t interested in enforcing and respecting any rules—they don’t play by them, and this won’t change.

TikTok has faced a great deal of criticism over the years from policymakers and concerned citizens.

Last month the Wall Street Journal highlighted how TikTok let accounts linked to the Chinese government spread misleading content targeting U.S. voters ahead of the 2024 election.

Earlier this year the U.S. Department of Justice sued TikTok for allegedly violating federal laws intended to protect children online.

In 2022, U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security sharing concerns about TikTok’s operations in the U.S., saying in part,

TikTok captures vast amounts of private information on users, including American citizens, and has long been suspected of providing the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] with potential access to that information. This threatens the safety and security of American citizens, and also functions as an avenue for the Chinese government to track the locations of and develop blackmail on Federal employees and contractors.

U.S. Congressman Bruce Westerman wrote in March,

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 [Chinese Communist Party] 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.

Last year Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin filed two lawsuits against TikTok and its parent company ByteDance.

The A.G.’s lawsuits allege that TikTok and ByteDance failed to fully disclose that the company is subject to Chinese laws that mandate cooperation with intelligence activities of the People’s Republic of China and that TikTok aggressively collects sensitive user data.

Social media platforms are more than just websites or phone apps. These are multimillion dollar businesses owned and operated by investors and other interests. If the Chinese Communist Party can influence TikTok, the CCP may be able to manipulate content, influence users, and harvest data on one of the world’s largest social media platform. That’s a serious concern.

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

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Arkansas A.G. Sues Google, YouTube for Targeting Kids Online

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On Monday, Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin announced his office is suing YouTube and its parent companies Google and Alphabet for deceptively targeting children in Arkansas.

In a statement, the attorney general said,

“YouTube has deceived users and parents about the safety of its platforms for youth. YouTube has profited substantially off young Arkansans because it deliberately designed its platform to be addictive by using features to keep users engaged for as long as possible.

“Google has deliberately designed and marketed YouTube to exploit and addict young users, contributing to a mental health crisis in Arkansas. The majority of children aged 13 to 17 report using YouTube every day.

“One of the gravest public health threats to children in the United States today is the soaring rate of mental and behavioral health disorders, including depression, self-harm, body dysmorphia, and increased suicidal thoughts and attempts at suicide. This increase in mental health problems among children is the result of calculated efforts by social-media companies like YouTube to attract and addict youth to their platforms and to grow revenues without regard for the harmful effects that these companies know exist.”

Attorney General Griffin’s office has filed multiple lawsuits against tech companies for violating the Arkansas Deceptive Trade Practices Act — most notably Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.

The A.G.’s lawsuits against TikTok allege the social media giant aggressively collects sensitive user data and that TikTok failed to fully disclose that the company is subject to Chinese laws that mandate cooperation with intelligence activities of the People’s Republic of China.

The A.G.’s lawsuit against Meta — which owns Facebook and Instagram — argues the company structured its social media platforms “to exploit multiple neuropsychological traits in youth.” It notes that Facebook and Instagram are built around algorithms intentionally designed “to exploit human psychology and foster addiction to maximize users’ screen time.”

As we have written many, many times, social media platforms are not just websites or phone apps. This is a multibillion industry, and the adults who control these companies have a responsibility to ensure their platforms do not harm or exploit children. It’s good to see Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin continuing to hold tech companies accountable.

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

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Protecting Kids Online: Guest Column

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This summer, the U.S. Senate passed a pair of bills: the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and the Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0). Each garnered major bipartisan support, passing by an overwhelming margin of 91 to 3. If the bills are passed by the House, they will be the first major legislation aimed at protecting kids online in over two decades. 

The laws originally intended to govern the internet were passed over 20 years ago. These laws were mostly aimed at email exchanges and could never have anticipated the scope and scale of technology today. Not only is the internet used for everything from delivering groceries to running a business, but it is also the epicenter of our worst addictions, from social media to pornography, with algorithms that are incredibly effective at keeping people online. 

Heavy screen time has proven especially harmful for young people, with effects as varied as shortened attention spans, sleep problems, body image issues, depression, bullying, gambling, and addiction. Parents are left to themselves to protect their children online with somewhere between little help and outright animosity from tech companies. As CEO of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation Dawn Hawkins has rightly noted , “The parental controls do not work. … They’ve designed these platforms without parents in mind.”   

As current law stands, social media platforms, websites, and the companies that own them are not legally accountable for what happens to kids while on their sites. Despite additional pressure placed on these tech companies in recent years, there is still not any real incentive to keep children from their sites. Less kids means less money, both now and in the future.  

Despite the now obvious harms, young people have little incentive to pull themselves from what are their primary social and communication hubs. As Jonathan Haidt has argued, today’s situation represents a collective action problem. Many people stand to benefit by collectively coming offline. However, if only one person or small group of people chooses that course of action, it is not beneficial but costly.  

To be restricted from or to opt out of social media today comes at great social cost for individual tweens and teens. The vast majority of their peers own smartphones by age 12. The only way forward is some kind of collective action, so that the health benefits of turning off screens outweigh the social costs. 

This is where KOSA and COPPA 2.0 can help. As currently written, KOSA makes tech companies liable for the harms caused to minors on their platforms based on the platform’s design. It also makes them responsible for creating tools that safeguard minors when using their platforms—tools like protecting privacy, limiting autoplay videos and personalized recommendations, and blocking the distribution of unlawful materials.  

COPPA 2.0 is also a strong step toward incentivizing collective action. The original bill, passed in 1998, prohibited the collection of personal information of kids 13 and under. COPPA 2.0 raised this to any minor 17 and under. This is important because companies use this personal information for targeted advertising, which keeps kids online.  

Of course, these bills will never replace good parenting and collective community actions. Parents must be present with their teens and often in between them and their screens. They also must push their schools, home-school groups, or other educational alternatives to unplug together.  

It’s likely that more laws will be needed. In the battle between families and tech leviathans, families are outmatched. However, these two bills are a strong start. Parents, grandparents, teachers, mentors, and others should contact their representatives to help make sure KOSA and COPPA 2.0 get passed in the House and signed into law.  

This Breakpoint was co-authored by Jared Hayden. If you’re a fan of Breakpoint, leave a review on your favorite podcast app. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.  

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

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