A US Democratic senator worries that children are being indoctrinated with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) propaganda through TikTok.
Mark Warner from Virginia made the comments while speaking in Australia.
“If your country uses Huawei, if your kids are on TikTok, if your population uses WeChat as a social media platform, the ability for China to have undue influence is, I think, a much greater challenge and a much more immediate threat than any kind of actual, armed conflict,” he said, as reported by the Sydney Morning Herald.
TikTok has surged in popularity since it was created in 2016. The platform went global in 2017 and is now used by one billion people worldwide.
Warner said people should be concerned about China’s influence.
“China having this kind of technology domination in a number of countries ought to scare the heck out of us because we’ve seen the kind of Orwellian surveillance state they’ve already created within China,” he said.
Warner further said Australian parents should think twice before letting their kids use the app — something most democrats wouldn’t think to do, he admitted.
“This is not something you would normally hear me say, but Donald Trump was right on TikTok years ago.”
Trump threatened to ban the app in 2020 while President.
A study published by mobile marketing company URL Genius supports Warner’s suspicions. According to the survey, TikTok is a leading social media app when it comes to tracking users’ personal data. Worse, the data is sent to “unknown third parties.”
There are other concerns about content young children can view on the app.
On Tuesday, a US judge dismissed a suit against TikTok, which resulted after a 10-year-old girl died last year from a “blackout challenge” promoted on the platform. The challenge encouraged people to strangle themselves, which plaintiff Tawainna Anderson’s daughter tragically did with her mother’s purse strap.
The judge acknowledged a channel on TikTok indeed promoted the act but said TikTok was protected from liability under the Communications Decency Act.
The CCP has been making headlines beyond the online app. On Monday, the DOJ announced espionage-related charges against multiple Chinese spies and hinted at more actions. Subsequently, the RCMP said they’re investigating Chinese police stations in Canada.
