Parents Beware: Valid National Security Concerns and TikTok's U.S. Toxic Version Pushed to America's Children Make it a Double Threat
WASHINGTON, Jan. 17, 2025 -- Enough Is Enough applauds the Supreme Court's unanimous ruling upholding a federal law that could ban TikTok unless its Chinese-owned company, ByteDance, sells its U.S. operations by January 19, 2025. In his concurring opinion, Justice Gorsuch noted that the law serves a compelling interest; preventing a foreign country, designated by Congress and the President as an adversary of our Nation, from harvesting vast troves of personal information about tens of millions of Americans.
An equally concerning issue about the TikTok which has 170 million U.S. users is the stark contrast between the Chinese and the U.S. version of the popular platform. While the Supreme Court's decision centered on national security risks posed by its ties to China, American parents should be aware that ByteDance's domestic Chinese version, Douyin, enforces strict protections for young users and carefully curated educational content - protections notably absent from the U.S. version of TikTok.
The TikTok algorithm served to U.S. children is vastly different and can expose them to harmful content promoting dangerous behaviors, inappropriate material, and addictive viewing patterns. Recent demonstrations show that a new account registered as a 15-year-old American girl immediately receives recommendations for dating older men, substance use, and self-harm content - before the user has even watched their first video. Meanwhile, Chinese youth using Douyin are allegedly served up a much tamer version showing science experiments, educational content, and videos celebrating academic achievement, with mandatory breaks and usage restrictions featuring a "teenage mode" which limits use by children under 14 to 40 minutes a day, making the app unavailable to those users between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.
This deliberate disparity in content moderation and safety features reveals a conscious decision by ByteDance to protect Chinese youth while exposing American children to potentially harmful content, all while hooking consumers through its addictive algorithms and collecting their personal data. The platform continues to generate $2 billion in advertising revenue from users aged 13-17 alone.
As President-elect Trump, policymakers and potential buyers decide the future of TikTok in America, the safety and wellbeing of millions of young users should be considered just as critical as the existing national security implications of the platform. In both regards, ByteDance has demonstrated it is a bad actor, with little or no concern for America or its citizens.
About Enough Is Enough
Enough Is Enough® is a national nonpartisan, non-profit organization who has led the fight to make the internet safer for children and families since 1994. EIE's efforts to prevent the internet-enabled exploitation of children incorporate a four-pronged holistic strategy with shared responsibilities between the public, corporate America, government and faith community.
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