Why ban TikTok

In an amazing display of bipartisanship, the Senate and House are prepared to ban the app on all government devices.

This is an easy call. BAN TikTok on all government devices. No federal employee needs to be sitting around making TikTok videos with government property pic.twitter.com/um0nV6qUK7

— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) December 15, 2022

I’ve been concerned about TikTok because of health and anxiety-related issues.

“Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, teenage girls around the world have reportedly been showing up at doctors’ offices with newly developed tics — physical jerking movements and verbal outbursts — which doctors believe could be caused by the Chinese-owned social media app, TikTok.”¹

From the Wall Street Journal in October 2021:

Movement-disorder doctors were stumped at first. Girls with tics are rare, and these teens had an unusually high number of them, which had developed suddenly. After months of studying the patients and consulting with one another, experts at top pediatric hospitals in the U.S., Canada, Australia and the U.K. discovered that most of the girls had something in common: TikTok.²

And another source:

TikTok — is actually changing the minds of our children by conditioning their behavior. First, girls are spending countless hours glued to their phones, but then… these young girls are actually developing new mental disorders.

Yes, TikTok is giving girls mental problems.³

So, yes, there is a problem?

But all social media (and our smart phones in general) lure people – particularly teens and young adults – into an addictive cycle.

So why the bipartisan ban on TikTok? Independent journalist Michael Tracy asked some good questions in a recent series of tweets:

I don't like or use TikTok but the sudden rush to ban it everywhere is creepy and not being justified with any real tangible evidence — just innuendo and a general belief that China is Bad. Because of course, no other government/corporation would ever do bad stuff with your data

— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) December 19, 2022

With all the recent revelations about Twitter and government-sponsored censorship, how is what the U.S. doing through its social media different than what China is supposedly doing?

A Mayo Clinic study waaaay back in 2016 (anything two years old or more when it comes to the internet…) found that, “Other studies also have observed links between high levels of social media use and depression or anxiety symptoms.”

What do you think – specifically about this bipartisan rush to ban TikTok? Is it suspect? Do they know something they don’t want to tell us about this particular app and the actions of the Chinese Communist Parry behind it? Is it a psychological weapon against our young? Is it mining our data and part of a grand scheme to wage techno terror? Or is it just a clever way to make us dumber?

1. Doctors Point to TikTok as Possible Cause of Tic Development in Teen Girls, by Alana Mastrangelo, Breitbart News, October 2021[↩]
2. Teen Girls Are Developing Tics. Doctors Say TikTok Could Be a Factor, by Julie Jargon, Wall Street Journal, October 10, 2021[↩]
3. TikTok, Tourette’s, and Nervous Tics: How China Has Reprogrammed Our Girls, by Erin Elmore, Human Events, August 3, 2022[↩]