{"id":623457,"date":"2023-03-29T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-03-29T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.sellorbuyhomefast.com\/index.php\/2023\/03\/29\/has-tiktok-made-us-better-or-much-much-worse\/"},"modified":"2023-03-29T13:00:00","modified_gmt":"2023-03-29T18:00:00","slug":"has-tiktok-made-us-better-or-much-much-worse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2023\/03\/29\/has-tiktok-made-us-better-or-much-much-worse\/","title":{"rendered":"Has TikTok made us better? Or much, much worse?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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You\u2019ve likely heard that the US government is trying to ban TikTok<\/a>. Lawmakers want to force TikTok to divest from its China-based parent company, ByteDance, and become a fully US-based company; if that doesn\u2019t work (the Chinese government has said it would oppose this<\/a>), a ban could come in the form of an executive order forbidding business transactions with TikTok, i.e., prohibiting it from the Apple and Android app stores. <\/p>\n

The government\u2019s ostensible reasoning for all of this complicated, confusing, and extremely showboat-y<\/a> hubbub, which included last week\u2019s hearing with TikTok CEO Shou Chew<\/a>, is national security. A large and bipartisan swath of Congress is concerned that because ByteDance is based in China, the Chinese government could access American users\u2019 data and push or suppress certain kinds of content to Americans. Judging by many of the questions asked by congresspeople (one wondered if<\/a> TikTok had access to his \u201chome WiFi network\u201d), officials barely seem to grasp what TikTok is, framing it as either single-handedly responsible for all the mischief kids get up to online or as a Chinese psy-op. <\/p>\n

While these concerns are not exactly throwaways, they don\u2019t address the more existential question of TikTok\u2019s five-year presence on Americans\u2019 phones (more than 150 million of them!): Is TikTok a force for good? What even is \u201cgood\u201d on the internet? Can a social platform ever aspire to be it, much less embody it?<\/p>\n

TikTok is inherently different from Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, BeReal (at least the people still using it<\/a>), or any of the other social apps begging for our attention. What do we lose if we lose TikTok? I\u2019m not talking so much about the people whose livelihoods are tied up in it \u2014 those people will surely lose business and clout, but many of them will or already have pivoted to other platforms. I\u2019m talking more about the things you can\u2019t quantify: the explosion of creativity you\u2019ll see in just a few scrolls spent on TikTok, the bringing together of hundreds of cultures, the ways in which TikTok does and doesn\u2019t act as a democratizing force. Have we been asking the wrong questions about TikTok the whole time? Whether or not you\u2019re being spied on, is it an app even worth using at all? Here, the cases for and against TikTok. <\/p>\n

TikTok is good, actually<\/h3>\n

When TikTok came on the scene in 2018, the only thing most people knew about it was that it was embarrassing<\/a>. Having evolved from the platform Musical.ly<\/a>, which was populated largely by children and young teenagers lip-syncing to sped-up versions of pop hits, TikTok took a few months to shed the stench of cringe content. Slowly, however (and then much more quickly at the onset of the pandemic), more people were charmed by its unique video editing tools, the easy-to-replicate meme formats, and a new, burgeoning form of extremely silly comedy. In the depths of quarantine, TikTok offered an escape<\/a>, whether it was in the form of scrolling through cutesy cottagecore content<\/a> or families learning dance moves<\/a> while stuck at home together. <\/p>\n

The experience of using TikTok sets it apart from its competitors. As addicting as TikTok is, it does not beckon you with constant notifications the way Facebook and Instagram seem to constantly demand your attention, and when you spend more than an hour scrolling, TikTok will encourage you to take a break. <\/p>\n

Even pre-pandemic, it was clear that TikTok was an extraordinarily powerful communication tool. First, it\u2019s succinct: Until recently, all TikTok videos were capped at three minutes (the limit was originally 60 seconds). Second, you can go viral even if you don\u2019t have any followers: Videos are served algorithmically to each user based on what they\u2019ve engaged with in the past, and even videos from small accounts can pick up steam on people\u2019s For You pages via a snowball effect. Third: Most of the time, you see the person\u2019s face as they\u2019re talking, creating a stronger, more familiar bond than if you\u2019d simply read a tweet or listened to a podcast. Instead of feeling like you\u2019re watching a stranger, when you see a person talking to you for long enough, they start to feel like someone you can trust. <\/p>\n

While much of the attention on TikTok\u2019s ability to make strangers feel like friends has focused on how it has hastened the spread of harmful misinformation, it has also encouraged young people to vote<\/a>, to engage in local politics<\/a>, and to organize<\/a> \u2014 sometimes against TikTok itself<\/a>. It has helped some teens embrace their own mediocrity<\/a> on an internet that nearly always serves them people who are prettier, richer, and more talented than they are. It has inspired people to make fun iced coffee drinks<\/a>, to pursue careers in arts and entertainment<\/a>, to romanticize their lives<\/a>, to feel more positively about their own bodies<\/a>. It\u2019s been a source of joy for people dying of terminal disease<\/a>, an outlet for the grieving<\/a>, a haven for queer and questioning kids<\/a>, a diary for newly out trans people<\/a>. <\/p>\n

In a 2019 op-ed defending<\/a> Twitter\u2019s effect on culture, Sarah J. Jackson argues that despite its reputation of being a cesspit, the social app actually made us better people. The same argument can be made for TikTok. \u201cLike all technological tools, Twitter can be exploited for evil and harnessed for good,\u201d she writes. \u201cJust as the printing press was used to publish content that argued fervently for slavery, it was also used by abolitionists to make the case for manumission. Just as radio and television were used to stir up the fervor of McCarthyism, they were also used to undermine it. Twitter has fallen short in many ways. But this decade, it helped ordinary people change our world.\u201d TikTok is, at its best, a champion for ordinary people, for democracy, for debate, for discourse. That doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s always nice, but it can be. <\/p>\n

TikTok is bad, actually<\/h3>\n

Or maybe it\u2019s all shitty, and we\u2019re simply too addicted to scrolling through TikTok to notice or care how much it\u2019s harming us. At least 15 children under 13 who tried to participate in its viral \u201cblackout challenge\u201d have died<\/a>. While pursuing the dream that TikTok dangled in front of them \u2014 becoming an overnight superstar \u2014 many more have become burnt out<\/a>, disillusioned<\/a>, or otherwise hurt<\/a>. \u201cDance used to be the most fun thing in my life and now I don\u2019t like it. Social media has robbed me of that,\u201d says TikTok\u2019s biggest breakout star, Charli D\u2019Amelio<\/a>, in the first season of her reality show. \u201cI don\u2019t know how long anyone expects me to keep going as if nothing is wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watch enough TikTok and you\u2019ll start to see an extremely skewed version of the world, one where only the loudest, most extreme version of humanity is the kind worth noticing. On TikTok, it\u2019s easy to get the sense that everyone is either beautiful or hideous, talented or cringe, billionaires or destitute, simply because extremes are what gets the most attention. As an algorithmically driven platform, TikTok rewards its users\u2019 basest instincts<\/a>. What hits on TikTok is a legible, irresistible hook \u2014 or, in other words, the kind of content that smacks you in the face with its obviousness. <\/p>\n

One largely inconsequential example: At several points over the past three years, we\u2019ve been told that millennials are at war with Gen Z<\/a>. Despite the fact that a handful of viral TikToks hardly count as a \u201cwar,\u201d the way TikTok amplifies meaningless controversy through algorithmic power and negativity bias is concerning, not just because young people desperately need solidarity to create a better world for all of us, but because these sorts of mostly made-up trends<\/a> offer a distorted view of what the world\u2019s actual immediate problems are. A far more consequential example: Accounts like @LibsofTikTok<\/a>, which cherry-pick content from liberal or queer TikTokers and use them as strawmen for the left for their followers to mock and attack, function as rage-bait fueling the right-wing media. In the same way that \u201cchronically online\u201d discourse on Twitter<\/a> distracts us with culture war kindling, TikTok makes it even more personal and ad hominem. <\/p>\n

TikTok videos\u2019 brevity only adds to this problem; the short, headline-grabbing content that goes the most viral is largely devoid of context and nuance, seemingly designed to distract and anger us further. Even something as simple as, say, a review of a new skin care product, is often framed in hyperbole \u2014 videos don\u2019t travel unless you make it sound like<\/a> \u201cthis is the BEST thing I\u2019ve ever tried,\u201d or its inverse: \u201cAll the videos encouraging you to buy this product are LIES!\u201d What\u2019s left is a cycle of buying and selling, loving and hating, embracing wholeheartedly and then forgetting, until you\u2019re surrounded by barely used bottles in your bathroom cabinet and never-worn clothes for a trend that came and went by the time it arrived at your door. <\/p>\n

This is to say nothing of the uneasy sensation of actually consuming TikTok, the reason that with every hour you spend on it, the app sends you a little PSA to maybe get off your phone and do something else for a while. Scrolling TikTok is the visual equivalent of a sensory deprivation tank, the adult version of transfixed toddlers staring at an iPad. It is a machine specifically engineered to get you to dissociate. In the span of about 30 seconds, you can watch a funny video of a puppy leaping into the snow, a sexy fan edit of a popular sci-fi franchise that may or may not be AI-generated, a poem about what it means to lose one\u2019s mother, a makeup tutorial in which all the comments are people making fun of the person\u2019s weight, a 22-year-old articulating why he doesn\u2019t think his girlfriend should be allowed to hang out with other men. Unless you were enrolled in some kind of therapy intended to remove you from all groundedness in reality, nobody would argue that consuming in such a fashion is \u201cgood\u201d for you. <\/p>\n

TikTok isn\u2019t the problem, actually<\/h3>\n

Lest it is not clear, I don\u2019t think TikTok should be banned. I think the problems exacerbated by TikTok are the same problems exacerbated by algorithmically powered social media as a whole. The only winners of TikTok being banned would be Meta and Alphabet (i.e., Instagram and YouTube), companies that, while not carrying the political baggage of being based in China, are far more responsible<\/a> for the sorry state of humanity under attention capitalism<\/a> than TikTok.<\/p>\n

In a fascinating interview with Current Affairs,<\/a> author of Stolen Focus: Why You Can\u2019t Pay Attention<\/em> Johann Hari explains how social media distracts us from what\u2019s important by shoving meaningless controversy in our faces. \u201cHow can we come together and achieve anything if we can\u2019t listen and are constantly screaming at each other and constantly interacting through mediums designed to make us angry and hateful towards each other?\u201d he asks. It\u2019s not only collective action that social media makes us miss out on, though; Hari argues that when our attention is constantly fractured, you miss out on the less tangible aspects of what makes a full life. \u201cIf you can\u2019t focus, you can\u2019t form proper deep friendships and achieve meaningful work. You can\u2019t have a meaningful life if you don\u2019t experience depth and attention.\u201d<\/p>\n

Few people, including Hari, are advocating that social media should be banned altogether. It\u2019s simply not compatible with the idea of a free and open internet, which, unless the US decides to erect its own version of China\u2019s Great Firewall<\/a>, is the internet Americans live in. That\u2019s not to argue that major social media companies should be allowed to exist the way they have for the past decade and a half, which is to say by doing whatever they want and enticing people to spend as much time as possible on their websites.<\/p>\n

Hari uses the example of how mothers in the 1970s rallied together to push back against the lead industry, which for decades had knowingly caused<\/a> mental and psychological problems in children. \u201cThey didn\u2019t say, \u2018let\u2019s ban all cars and gasoline\u2019,\u201d he explains, \u201cthey said: let\u2019s ban the leaded gasoline and force the companies to move to a different business model that doesn\u2019t poison our children.\u201d<\/p>\n

What would a business model for social media look like that didn\u2019t prioritize time spent on the app? Hari suggests something like a subscription model, making users of social media sites the true customers, as opposed to the advertisers shopping for users\u2019 data. \u201cSuddenly, they\u2019re not asking, \u2018How do we hack and invade Nathan?\u2019 Instead, they\u2019re asking, \u2018What does Nathan want?\u2019\u201d The other model would be something like the BBC, an independent but partially taxpayer-funded media institution, he says: \u201cThink about the sewers: everyone listening or reading is near a sewer. Before we had sewers, we had sewage in the streets, people got cholera, and it was terrible. We all pay to build the sewers, and own and maintain them together. We might want to own the information pipes together, because we\u2019re getting the equivalent of cholera, but with our attention and our politics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Making either of these changes would require an enormous psychic leap, particularly for Americans, whose fealty to the free market runs core to our identity. But Hari urges us to imagine it anyway. \u201cWe are not medieval peasants begging at the courts of King Zuckerberg and King Musk for a few little crumbs of attention from their table,\u201d he says. \u201cWe are the free citizens of democracies, and we own our own minds. And together, we can take them back if we\u2019re determined to.\u201d<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think that banning TikTok is a step toward democracy. That we are even considering it does, however, reveal that companies are not kings; that they are subject to the rule of law just as we are. It\u2019s possible that if Americans can envision a world in which an entire, hugely powerful social network is kicked out of our country, perhaps more of them can be transformed into a force that works for us rather than against us. Personally, I\u2019d start by taking a hard look at the companies that have been here longer. <\/p>\n

This column was first published in the Vox Culture newsletter. <\/em>Sign up here<\/em><\/a> so you don\u2019t miss the next one, plus get newsletter exclusives. <\/em><\/p>\n

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Lawmakers want to force TikTok to divest from its China-based parent company, ByteDance, and become a fully US-based company; if that doesn\u2019t work (the Chinese government has said it would oppose this), a ban could come in the form of an executive order […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":623458,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[534,2442,22854],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-623457","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-financial","8":"category-tiktok","9":"category-worse"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=623457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/623458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=623457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=623457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=623457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}