TikTok: Why you should ban your kids from the social media platform
Call it the TikTok teachable moment. Parents now have an opportunity to talk to their kids about issues from privacy to human rights, so long as they get the app off their phones
Opinion
Don't miss out on the headlines from Opinion. Followed categories will be added to My News.
- Parents warned as pro-anorexia videos run rife on TikTok
- Pets ‘dropped’ for likes in cruel TikTok trend
- TikTok, Ke$ha's in town
A data-harvesting arm of the Chinese Communist Party or a harmless online catalogue of cheesy dance moves?
The boss of the Australian branch of TikTok is at pains to convince us — the formidable and suspicious parents that we are — that the video-sharing platform is all fluff and rainbows, a mere conduit to wholesome family fun.
And that it is not, despite suggestions by even Donald Trump to the contrary, a piece of data-harvesting spyware with worrying links to the Chinese government.
But, sorry, that’s not good enough.
I am banning my tween daughter from using it — I generally don’t argue for bans — and here’s why.
TikTok’s Lee Hunter has lobbied our MPs, telling them: “The truth is, with tensions rising between some countries, TikTok has unfortunately been caught in the middle, and is being used by some as a political football.
“I assure you, we’re a social media platform for sharing videos — that’s all.”
Meanwhile PM Scott Morrison yesterday ruled out an Australia-wide veto on the app because there’s no proof — yet — that our security interests or citizens have been compromised. Instead it’s a case of buyer beware.
“People should know that the line connects right back to China and that they should exercise their own judgment about whether they should participate in those things or not,” the PM said.
The line connects right back to China. The concern is that TikTok is owned by Chinese company ByteDance, a pioneer of artificial intelligence. It has 1.6 million Australian users, most under 25.
TikTok however denies it provides user data to the Chinese government.
With TikTok, there’s the risk of exposing children and young teenagers to paedophiles and other predators
There’s the risk to body image, particularly for young girls. One friend found her body-conscious 12-year-old scrolling through endless short but graphic weight-loss videos. How to lose a stone in a week. How to look skinny. What to eat if you want boys to like you, and so on.
And then the messages posted: “I’m ugly, I hate myself, I look fat.”
Then there are the hashtags linked to dangerous behaviour like cutting and self-harm.
There’s the risk, too, of inciting trolls or bullies. Some of the content on this site is highly suggestive and often age-inappropriate.
Explaining all of this to my daughter has actually made for a great teachable moment.
We know apps and websites all collect our info to flog to advertisers but this is next level.
Even when it was revealed that TikTok was delving into our phone clipboards — the area where something is stored if you copy a photo or text — it was all tidied up via an excuse that it was to avoid spam. Since fixed, apparently.
But tech giant Apple basically discovered in the iOS 14 that it was spying on millions of users. China’s TikTok was one of the apps caught snooping. Go figure.
What comfort do we have that TikTok is not mining our personal contacts, our browser history or anything our friends have been looking at and packaging it up with a nice bow for a foreign government?
Absolutely none.
It has security implications now, not just privacy ones. There’s willingly handing over your data and then there’s it being harvested from you.
All the while preaching this message: “(The) platform is committed to protecting users’ privacy and being transparent about how our app works.”
Last month Liberal senator Jim Molan raised the issue of reverse engineering TikTok and that it was merely a data collection service masquerading as social media.
“If you want to be someone’s dupe, you’re likely to do the wrong thing,” he said. “Be your own person — it comes down to whether you mind being tricked.”
Another friend’s daughter says she is fed up with TikTok because it hardcore pushes political theory and judgment at her every time she logs on when she only wants to use the platform for its advertised so-called purpose — to have fun.
Speaking of politics, last year a teen user of the platform claimed she was banned for creating a makeup video which she narrated by explaining China’s miserable treatment of the country’s Uighur minority.
Kids like to hang with friends to make TikTok videos and the editing feature gives it polish, is the view.
As if childhood isn’t politicised enough, we don’t need a brainwashing activist in our kids’ pockets 24/7.
Jenny McAllister, the chair of the Senate Select Committee on Foreign Interference through Social Media said: “We want Australians to have confidence that the only thing to worry about when using TikTok is the quality of their dance moves.”
But I and many others don’t share that confidence.
It’s user-generated and largely unmoderated.
The fact that it has a self-harm section listed on its website should ring alarm bells.
There’s little reassurance that the company stipulates content that promotes eating habits that are “likely to cause health issues” is “not allowed on the platform”.
“Do not post content that supports pro-ana [anorexia] or other dangerous behaviour to lose weight,” it states.
And beyond the trolls and sex abusers, isn’t TikTok effectively state-sponsored widespread espionage, as a colleague pointed out.
If like me you won’t let your tween daughter anywhere near it — despite the constant pestering — it boils down to one thing.
Make a small sacrifice and don’t join TikTok.
@whatlouthinks