The REAL Reason to Ban TikTok
I have a bunch of images to show you about TikTok, but first some background…
President Trump has announced that he plans to “ban” TikTok from the United States. Exactly how he will do this is still unclear, but he said he plans to sign something as early as this weekend.
Many experts say that the U.S. government has reason to be concerned about the Chinese-developed app. There is some pretty solid evidence that the app can gain access to personal data. The US military banned TikTok from government issued devices earlier this year. TikTok denies all this and claims that it is safe. Who knows for sure?
TikTok’s back end security issues are the least of my concerns.
Maybe the app isn’t very safe security-wise. Okay. But what I’m more concerned with as a parent is how safe TikTok is for my kids in its basic use and interface.
To be completely honest, I could care less if the Chinese are spying on me via TikTok. I don’t have many secrets to hide. And I don’t have much money to steal.
What I care about is the content that my kids see on TikTok and what it inevitably does to their hearts and minds. There are plenty of reasons we should ban (or at least delete) this app.
Help your kids learn to use their smartphones with wisdom.
Kids are being harmed in subtle but significant ways on TikTok.
I don’t spend much time on TikTok, but I know that most kids are on there all the time. It’s an obsession for many of them. While much of the content is benign (and brain-numbingly stupid), there is a lot of content that is downright awful.
You can easily find open conversations about sex. Women suggestively dancing in ways that serve as entry-level porn. Young kids copying these dances and getting their first experience with sexual exploitation. Kids doing stupid things. Kids copying other kids doing stupid things. Pedophiles reaching out to your kids and asking for nudes. Predators threatening your kids if they don’t share images of themselves. The list goes on and on.
Now, on to all the images I want to share with you.
You need to start following Collin Kartchner on Instagram. He’s my new hero. He leads school assemblies and has a great Ted Talk about the influence of social media on our kids, but his biggest impact is found on Instagram. There, he constantly posts the garbage he finds on social media and shares screen shots of the interactions he has with parents and kids about the ways that apps like TikTok are negatively affecting us.
I could make a long argument about why I think TikTok is dangerous for your kids and why it would be a good idea to delete it from their phones, but I thought I would just share some images I borrowed from Kartchner’s Instagram stories. (All images below are from Collin Kartchner and I truly appreciate his work in sharing them with concerned parents everywhere. Truly, go follow him to stay up to date.)
So you know, I went a little crazy here. There are probably 60 images below and they are pretty diverse. Many are images from TikTok. Some are direct messages to Collin from kids or parents. Some are screenshots of articles about scary TikTok stuff. There are even a few memes that are funny/not funny about the negative impact of the app.
I know it’s a lot, but my goal here is to absolutely overwhelm you with content and hopefully scare the crap out of you, so go ahead and start scrolling….
Are you a parent who is overwhelmed about what to do? You’re not alone.
The junk that our kids will encounter on TikTok is just the tip of the iceberg of what they will find on their phones. It’s like the wild west on there. Giving your child or teenager a smartphone demands that you equip them to use it with wisdom.
To help parents do that, we have created an incredibly helpful and easy to use digital course called Smartphones 101. It contains 10 short video clips that you watch with your kids and discuss. They tee up all the conversations that you know you need to have with them about smart phone use. Best of all, the course can give you peace of mind that you have prepared your kids for what they’re going to encounter on their phones.
