TikTok is harming children at an industrial scale

Related ongoing thread: Snapchat is harming children at an industrial scale - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43704382

Haidt is not the world's most careful data analyst [0], so a determined skeptic would probably not find this persuasive. But I think he's been directionally correct about all his major points in the past decade:

* Cancel culture is not compatible with democratic norms [1]

* Social media is making many people a little worse off and it makes some people a lot worse off

* having our phones on us all the time is bad for just about everything that requires sustained attention [2], including flirting and dating [3]

* Technology won't solve this problem. AI will make things worse [4]. If TikTok gets banned and some slightly more benevolent version takes it place, we're still headed in the wrong direction. What we need is culture change, which Haidt is trying his darndest at. Hats off to him.

[0] https://matthewbjane.github.io/blog-posts/blog-post-7.html

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/23/business/jonathan-haidt-s...

[2] https://thecritic.co.uk/its-the-phones-stupid/

[3] https://www.sexual-culture.com/p/its-obviously-the-phones

[4] https://www.npr.org/2019/06/04/726709657/sometimes-fascinati...

> But when the Kentucky AG’s office was preparing to post their brief against TikTok, whoever was in charge of doing the redaction simply covered the relevant text with black rectangles. Even though you can’t see the text while reading the PDF, you can just use your cursor to select each black section, copy it, and then paste it into another file to read the hidden text.

Incredibly hilarious. Only leet hackers can pull this off though, same as pressing F12 in the browser to hack the mainframe!

I don't have kids, so I'm not in the trenches on this one. But a personal anecdote that might serve as evidence that other things are possible to everyone navigating tech and kids...

When I was a kid living in a trailer in the midwest in the eighties I asked my parents to buy me a secondhand set of 1973 Encyclopedia Britannica from our local library - for $7. It fed the same curiosity and joy of discovering new things that you would want your kid to get from resources online.

When we went on trips we always drove. And even if I didn't already have a book or books from the library that I was reading at the time, my parents would suggest I take a volume of the Encyclopedia. And sure enough if I got bored I'd break it out. (Unless it was too dark to read at which point I'd just fall sleep.)

That's all to say there are alternatives that cut the gordian knot, which kids can really dig if you frame it right. My parents were both voracious readers themselves, and it didn't take long for their reading to my sibling and I to turn into reading on our own. So when we got something that provided the novelty and agency of navigating your own way through an encyclopedia, it was a huge hit.

Of course things are very different today. And I'm not a luddite or even someone who believes that old ways are intrinsically better. But there are ways to feed the many various and often contradictory needs kids have that aren't reliant on contemporary tech.

I am surprised how common it is for younger women and teenagers to receive requests for gifting and get sexualized comments which this article mentions. I don't see a lot of people talking about it but I think it would really warp someone's mind to be under 18 and be receiving requests for foot pics, "spoiling", and more. I've wanted to put this out there for a long time but felt like no one wanted to talk about it.

Related critcism of the book and the authors of this site: https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2024/07/why-academics-...

From the badly redacted Kentucky AG PDF:

> As the U.S. Surgeon General recently explained, children’s and parents’ attempts to resist social media is an unfair fight: “You have some of the best designers and product developers in the world who have designed these products to make sure people are maximizing the amount of time they spend on these platforms. And if we tell a child, use the force of your willpower to control how much time you’re spending, you’re pitting a child against the world’s greatest product designers."

This struck a chord. I struggle with addictive tendencies and I've been having to re-teach myself that stumbling is not always because "I didn't try hard enough" but because I live in a world thats optimizing for retention/subscriptions/etc...

My favorite part is how incompetent they were in handling the redaction:

"But when the Kentucky AG’s office was preparing to post their brief against TikTok, whoever was in charge of doing the redaction simply covered the relevant text with black rectangles. Even though you can’t see the text while reading the PDF, you can just use your cursor to select each black section, copy it, and then paste it into another file to read the hidden text. It is great fun to do this — try it yourself! Or just read our version of the brief in which we have done this for you."

> As one internal report put it: [...damning effects...]

I recall hearing of related embarrassing internal reports from Facebook.

And, earlier, the internal reports from big tobacco and big oil, showing they knew the harms, but chose to publicly lie instead, for greater profit.

My question is... Why are employees, who presumably have plush jobs they want to keep, still writing reports that management doesn't want to hear?

* Do they not realize when management doesn't want to hear this?

* Does management actually want to hear it, but with overwhelming intent bias? (For example, hearing that it's "compulsive" is good, and the itemized effects of that are only interpreted as emphasizing how valuable a property they own?)

* Do they think the information will be acted upon constructively, non-evil?

* Are they simply trying to be honest researchers, knowing they might get fired or career stalled?

* Is it job security, to make themselves harder to fire?

* Are they setting up CYA paper trail for themselves, for if the scandal becomes public?

* Are they helping their immediate manager to set up CYA paper trails?

I don't disagree with the claim that brainrot literally rots brains. But, I strongly oppose laws that ban social media on the grounds of "protecting children."

Parents are fully capable of monitoring and regulating their children's internet usage without Daddy Government getting involved.

Just children? I've had to block social media for myself because of how addictive it was / how much time I was wasting.

I will say though, if you are trying to watch videos more from an educational perspective then it can be useful. Although, I would advise getting an LLM summary of the video, and then speed reading the summary in order to determine if their is any useful content in there.

I wish parents blocked such sites on their children's devices, so we didn't have to expand the censorship & surveillance state to protect them.

> We conducted a nationally representative survey of 1,006 Gen Z young adults (ages 18-27). We asked respondents to tell us, for various platforms and products, if they wished that it “was never invented.” [...] and the most regretted platforms of all: TikTok (47%) and X/Twitter (50%).

Ouch, Gen Z really hate Twitter.

> In this post we argue that Americans should welcome the disappearance of TikTok because the company is causing harm to children, adolescents, and young adults at an industrial scale.

protip: this isn't the reason people are trying to ban the app, and it shouldn't be banned. Currently I think you have to be 13+ to go on the app. If you think it's harming kids as the reason to ban it, you could advocate maybe for 18+ access instead. The fact this isn't the advocated change, to me suggests that's not the reason why people are trying to ban it (concern for children's well-being). If this were the case, you'd also have to ban probably the other U.S. social media. It's probably also important to note how much good social media does by freely sharing valuable information (while people focus on the negative info that's shared).

Parents who let their kids mindlessly use TikTok, YouTube, etc., are guilty of neglect IMO.

Great, Meta next?

When we talk about harm on the internet, we often separate the activity from the harm, e.g., a problem with [activity] is that it could cause [harm].

But it's now clear that the activity is the harm. The issue isn’t that using TikTok might make you addicted; the issue is that you are using TikTok.

Just as there’s no such thing as responsibly huffing paint fumes, there’s no such thing as responsible social media use, only sub-diagnosable use.

The general problem is media companies that:

1. show you more stuff automatically, and

2. optimize for engagement when choosing what to show you next

That optimization works, and they have little incentive to optimize for anything else (like minimizing harm to users). TikTok is not the only offender, but they are the best at it (read: worst for users).

It is an additional concern that they are ultimately controlled by a foreign country that is relatively hostile to us and has low transparency to our law enforcement apparatus and regulators. Facebook and YouTube have to at least be worried about breaking our existing laws or annoying our Congress. This reins them in at least a little bit. TikTok actually did annoy Congress enough to prompt bi-partisan action (a very high bar in today's climate), but successfully won a game of chicken, as the law they are violating is officially being ignored.

Adults too

Each and every one of these points applies to Meta in a huge way:

> 1. Addictive, compulsive, and problematic use 2. Depression, anxiety, body dysmorphia, self-harm, and suicide 3. Porn, violence, and drugs 4. Sextortion, CSAM, and sexual exploitation 5.TikTok knows about underage use and takes little action

Hell, it's even a matter of congressional record!

https://www.npr.org/2023/11/07/1211339737/meta-failed-to-add...

it doesn't make it right, but this current political climate's myopic focus on tiktok alone destroys any credibility on this.

I do not disagree that tiktok is a negative experience for anyone. However the hyperfocus on Tiktok these investiationds had on tiktok is entirely clear from the context.

What should be mentioned in an article ccondemming tiktok is that most other social media young people may try are horrible as well.

The amountr of sexual explitation that takes place on snapchat is quite staggering from what I have read.

I do not see how Tiktok would be any less of a threat and cause less harm if it is partially owned by a US company. There is no evidence that US social media doing a fanastic job avoiding harm for kids and teens.

I would go so far as to say modern social media is nearly founded on the idea of addiction, and endless attempe at behavioral manipulation to sell ever more ads.

> But when the Kentucky AG’s office was preparing to post their brief against TikTok, whoever was in charge of doing the redaction simply covered the relevant text with black rectangles. Even though you can’t see the text while reading the PDF, you can just use your cursor to select each black section, copy it, and then paste it into another file to read the hidden text. It is great fun to do this — try it yourself! Or just read our version of the brief in which we have done this for you.

I feel like there needs to be more education about redaction and obfuscation tools, namely this black box tool and blurring. It is usually possible to reverse blurring. Not redacting information properly is just embarrassing.

The problem is not TikTok in isolation. It's all of the deeply algorithmic based apps out there trying to get you addicted. Apps are able to utilize so many dark design patterns and there is almost no protection, especially for young people.

> An internal presentation on the 2021 strategy for TikTok describes the company as being in an *"arms race for attention"*

We have a collective psychological experiment in the form of social media, but short-form content combined with an endless scrolling feed is functionally identical to the experiment with the rat pressing the cocaine button.

It is not beneficial for the population to have an increasingly shrinking attention span. If you can't pay attention for 30 minutes to look up candidate position while voting, or you can't even be bothered to pay attention to that boring "politics stuff" in the first place, then we have a major problem.

the same old story repeating with every generation. historically however, none of the 'devilish technologies' was banned

That is absurd. A competing children-harming platform that is not north american?

Only the US can harm children in industrial scales. Any threat to its sovereigness will be dealt with by our child soldiers.

TikTok, Snapchat, Meta (FB, Instagram) - all this garbage needs to go, at least for anyone younger than 18.

We have a plethora of evidence on how destructive social media has been for (especially young) people and still nothing is being done about it.

To all the people saying- "but there are benefits!":

Well of course, numbnuts, or else no one would use this stuff.

There are benefits to caffeine, nicotine and other drugs that we still agree we shouldn't expose to children.

Because the harms outweigh the benefits!

Simply don't give your kids a screen. No iPad, no iPhone, no video games, no nothing until they reach a more appropriate age.

What that age is might vary from child to child, but it's certainly not 3 years old!

Stop framing TikTok, this is a social media problem which will continue to exist even if TikTok is banned tomorrow.

Instagram is just as bad, meaning it should be put to the same scrutiny. It’s not ok just because it’s from the US

How do I pretend to fit in here, what is the actual number one proof that some random websites are "causing serious harm" to children? I had to stop reading to stop my blood from boiling at the quote below, before making it to the slew of legal pontification.

> As one internal report put it:

>> “Compulsive usage correlates with a slew of negative mental health effects like loss of analytical skills, memory formation, contextual thinking, conversational depth, empathy, and increased anxiety,” in addition to “interfer[ing] with essential personal responsibilities like sufficient sleep, work/school responsibilities, and connecting with loved ones.”1

This doesn't prove or imply anything. They can believe they are killing people (and probably do, especially with the "large amount of users = woah, i'm god" effect). It still won't be true unless they actually are (which I doubt, but I have never seen this supposedly ground breaking social media webpage before). There are companies causing actual harms on the internet and those are the ones censoring everything and spying on users (coincidentally, not to be a point against this thread) and making false narratives of why everyone needs to buy their spying product and put it on their web page and require using google chrome or mozilla firefox to view the website to be compatible with their spyware.

Edit:

I just scrolled through and only read the CSAM part because that's the only big enough bait to get me to read it and:

> PARA 112: these leaders knew about agencies that recruited minors to create Child Sexual Abuse Material and commercialized it using LIVE.

That sounds incredibly unlikely, when you interpret it at face value. So you're saying some good boy CS grad like everyone on HN - the most milquetoast people on the planet - just went from being afraid of even publishing easily rebukable misinformation, to knowingly assisting people in the most punishable crime on the planet?

> PARA 114: TikTok has long known that virtual gifting is used as a predatory grooming tactic on LIVE. TikTok has internally acknowledged that “perpetrators tend to use tactics such as gift giving, flattery, and gifting money to win the trust of minors.”

Are we supposed to conclude that "gifting" causes child sexual abuse? Okay, then what about the fact that being able to communicate at all does?

In the U.S. people under 18 are allowed to own and shoot firearms, typically rifles. It's silly to allow that that and then complain about a tiny box that shows videos.

Parents are responsible for their children. If a parent doesn't feed their kid, they go to jail. If a parent harms or allows harm through negligence to children, the parent is the one who suffers the consequences and has the child taken away.

If a parent is giving a child a phone and allowing them to use a harmful product, the parent is at fault and should suffer the consequences. Not the rest of us. I don't know why I should have my access to anything restricted because of bad parents. Parents choose to be parents and have and/or keep children and that is their business. Bad parents should suffer consequences and one of those can be no longer being allowed to be a parent.

It's one thing if a provider is specifically trying to get children on its platform - and if a company advertises its services in public places, it's again on the parent to be in control there. Social media companies aren't holding a gun to children's heads trying to get them to join. Kids wanting to do stuff because other kids think it is cool has always existed and that happens when children are not supervised or disciplined. Kids not doing what they are supposed to be doing of their own choice is a parental failure.

Someone under 18 shouldn't be able to purchase a cell phone, and if a parent wants to get them a cell phone, then the parent should accept responsibility for everything on that phone.

The addiction argument is tired. Anything pleasurable can be addictive. If you want people addicted to less things, design society where everyday life is less boring (getting rid of 2 hour commutes and having more parks would be a good start).

there are two kinds of hackers

those with children

those without

as a hacker without children because i got priced out of the market, why should i care about what tiktok does or ceases to do?

honest question, if tough to answer

or maybe i'm only trying to explain why I don't have a model of being in a formative state.... I mean, dogs don't use tiktok

I think the first thing that needs to be broken up is Apple’s grip on how screen time can be exported.

If screen time data can be accessed, then we can actually know how much time we spend on these doomscrolling social media apps. Only allow X time and no more

or is it parents who don't control their children's access to such content?

The world my kids inhabit, they spend most of their time on SnapChat.

Social media is hurting all of us on a worldwide scale.

It's a shame because there are good sides to it too.

China will need to have 4 undercover agents meet in the same place at the same time. They won't all meet each other, but a series of hand offs.

Conveniently, a small local college asian club wants to have a stop asian hate rally on the weekend of the 17th, at a local park which would be an ideal location. Tiktok gets word from Bytedance, who by Chinese law have party members on their board, that this rally needs to be heavily promoted organically to other Asians who live in the area. No ads, if someone talks about it in their tiktok, push it. Push it especially towards beloved Asian influencers with a large follwing.

The day comes and the turnout is a total blowout. A sea of Asians filling the park to support a noble cause.

80% of them are there because the CCP wanted them there to cover their operation, but when asked, every single one laughs at the idea that "Tiktok is a tool for propaganda". They say "I have never seen anything that promotes red flag communism or CCP ideals."

The scenario above is why the US government wants tiktok banned. The privacy stuff is second and the screen addiction stuff a far far third.