I’m neither homicidal nor suicidal, but the dystopian stream was creepy enough to make me believe parents who’ve said TikTok drove their kids to take their own lives or take up violence against others. I doubt that impressionable adolescents, much less children, can do it so easily, especially if they spend hours glued to the app every day. The exploitation is so blatant that silence from the #MeToo crowd is inexplicable.Ī mature adult might laugh off the sleaze. TikTok portrays women mainly as sex-craving, writhing bodies. (I didn’t believe it until I looked up the dates.)īut the preponderance was too creepy or weird for comfort.Īnyone for gross-out close-ups of pimples being popped with sharp instruments or of “worms” removed from a child’s nose? I never would have guessed that abolitionist Harriet Tubman was alive during the lifetimes of both Thomas Jefferson and Ronald Reagan. Some clips made me laugh, such as fake “paranormal” incidents.ĪOC storms away from ‘Libs of TikTok’ creator on Capitol Hill Yes, I found life-affirming stuff of the cute-baby-meets-cute-cat ilk. I have no idea how TikTok’s infamous algorithms decide what videos to send to any individual user’s feed.īut half I saw were disgusting, depraved or stomach-turning. Getty Imagesīut after I spent a few nerve-rattling hours with my own feed, “national security” concerns seemed like nitpicks.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, which tells us all we need to know about her tastes.) Despite politicians on both sides wanting to ban the app, one notable supporter is Rep. (TikTok’s noisiest supporter is wacky socialist Rep. Maybe those fears, which Democrats as well as Republicans have expressed, are well-founded. I was curious: Is the video-sharing app truly a Chinese “Trojan horse” to steal personal information about Americans?ĭoes it feed data about our tastes, habits and finances to the Beijing government? Too many parents have little idea what kinds of videos their kids are watching.Īfter ignoring the TikTok icon on my screen since I bought a new iPhone last fall, I took the plunge last week, prompted by the congressional hearings. They’re important but secondary to the more fundamental one of TikTok’s often-appalling content. What actually appears on TikTok matters more than the issues under debate in Washington. Mommies and daddies of America, meet the real TikTok - a dispiriting cesspool of smut, human grotesquerie and sick humor.

Golf simulation venue Golfzon Social eyeing fall opening in Downtown Brooklyn The race to tap top chefs for city office buildings is heating up Real estate luminaries turn out for REBNY's 127th annual awards galaīig office tenants and towers playing high-stakes chess game in ManhattanĪfter legal weed, NYC's once-wild 4/20 party just another boring street fair

Real wild child