TikTok's Sins

TikTok's Dataharvesting

TikTok, unsurprisingly, collects a lot of personal data on you, which includes:

• User location
• Contacts
• Phone numbers
• Email address
• Age
• Web browsing history
• App activity
• Direct messages from the app
• Financial info

It's said that TikTok can even track you when you delete the app via TikTok's trackers on other sites. These sort of trackers are also used by the likes of Google (GOOGLE IS EVIL!!!!!), FaceBook, and Microsoft. TikTok uses this data to build a better picture of its users to keep them hooked on the app, and to target ads at them. As I've said before, your personal data should belong to you and you alone.

TikTok's Algorithm

It seems today, that all you see, is algorithms in phones, apps and TV. It's no secret that TikTok's algorithm is freakishly good at reading their users' minds, all to keep people hooked onto the app like drug users are hooked to drugs. One of the ways TikTok's algorithms work is by noting how much time you spend watching a video, what comments and videos you like, etc, and it begins to bring you those types of videos. The quick-and-short style of video on the app, as well as the algorithm's ability to essentially predict what you want to watch, leads to your brain getting a dopamine hit everytime you watch a video. TikTok is basically an addicting drug.

Dangerous Trends

It's well known the average TikTok user has the brain capacity of an Earthworm, so them attempting stupid trends with the chance of death or injury shouldn't surprise anyone. TikTok has repeatedly been the breeding ground for dangerous trends, usually in the form of "challenges". These "challenges" range from mild civil disobedience to damage of public property to fullout health hazards. Some of which include:

• The Blackout Challenge: Users would attempt to hold their breath to blackout. About 20 people died attempting this challenge
• Penny Challange: Users would take a penny and put it in a socket. C'mon, you learn not to do this when you're 5!
• Benadryl Challenge: Users would overdose on Benadryl
• NyQuil Chicken Challenge: Users would cook chicken with NyQuil
• Skullbreaker Challenge: In this challenge, 3 people would line up, the centre person jumps and the two people on the side kick the legs of the centre person, causing them to fall down
• Milkcrate Challenge: Users would stack up milkcrates and try to stand on them
• Devious Lick: Primarily done by schoolchildren, users would steal objects from their schools.
• Vampire Fangs: For Halloween, users would superglue fake fangs onto their teeth. They would later freak out when they had a hard time taking them off.
• Mr. Clean Magic Eraser Teeth Whitening: Users would use Mr. Clean Magic Eraser to whiten their teeth, not knowing about the damage it could do to their enamel
• Teeth Filing: (TikTok has a lot of teeth trends, huh?) Users would shave down their teeth with nail files
• Coronavirus Challange: Users would go out in public and lick random things, which even included toilet seats in some cases!
• Corn Cob Challange: Users would put a corn cob on a drill and try to eat it like a fucking cartoon
• Cha Cha Slide Challenge: Users would swerve all around in a car on the road, based off of the Cha Cha Slide dance
• Baby Swing Challenge: Users would try to use baby swings, many got stuck in them (to be fair, mentally they belong in them)
• Ghost Pepper Challenge: Users would eat a ghost pepper or something made with ghost pepper, one of the hottest chili peppers in the world
• Dry Scoop Challenge: Users eat undiluted supplemental energy powder. This challenge gave someone a heart attack
• Stanley Cups: Stanley Cups are some adult sippy-cups that became popular for some reason. The thing about these cups is that they are made with lead and pose a health hazard if broken. Along with this, some people began to throw away their Stanley Cups in exchange for competitors, leading to a gigantic waste of plastic
• Facewax Challenge: Users would cover their face in wax and then peel it off, which could damage the skin
• Eye Challenge: Users would hold up a chemical concoction including bleach and hand sanitiser up to their eyes, which would change the colour of their eyes
• Silhouette Challenge: In these videos, users would pose in casual clothing for a few seconds before switching to a red light filter. Oftentimes, the person in the video was barely clothed or even naked while the filter was on. Some people found out how to edit the videos to remove the filter, so many videos of barely clothed girls began to be circulated around the internet
• Nutmeg Challenge: Users would mix high amounts of nutmeg, water, and milk and drink it. The high that it can give someone is dangerous
• Orbeez Challenge: Users would load up fake guns with Orbeez and shoot people with them. It's all fun and games until someone shoots them with a real bullet...
• Methylene Blue Trend: Some people began to consume methylene blue for its "health benefits". This chemical is used as a fish tank cleaner
• Door Kick Challenge: Users began to kick down random doors of random people (a shotgun outta be the best cure to this trend)
• Borg Challenge: Users drink a ridiculous amount of alcohol. Students at UMass were hospitalised after attempting this
• Beezin' Challenge: Users would apply Burt's Bees lip balm onto their eyelids, which can lead to eye inflamation, irritation, and even vision loss
• Do You Like Me, Like I Like You? Challange: Users would post candid photos and stalk people they were in love with

Mental Effects

TikTok has negative mental effects on its users. For one, TikTok can make people feel more isolated, as face-to-face contact is replaced with talking on the screen. Moreover, seeing people do fun stuff all day every day makes people believe they're "missing out". TikTok also causes users to develop strange behavioural tics. For example, some users on TikTok began to display what looked like Tourettes Syndrome, in reality, these users were influenced by a wave of popular videos on TikTok that featured people with Tourettes (whether these people themselves had Tourettes is still contested). TikTok encourages negative body image by pushing people with impossibly beautiful faces and perfect bodies to the feeds of many users, especially young users, the ones most vulnerable to seeing themselves negatively when presented with this content. This is made worse by TikTok's strange habit of recommending self-harm content to young users. TikTok's algorithm is perfectly made to keep you addicted and to keep you on the app longer. Many people report not believing the amount of time they spent on the app, what you plan to be just a 5 minute break before bed can easily turn into 30 minutes of mindless scrolling. This is because TikTok's algorithm is extremely good at picking out what you like to watch by noting how much time you spend watching certain videos, what you like, what you comment, and what comments you like, aided by the offsite trackers the site uses. This all comes together to serve users content so well-tailored to them they can't keep their eyes off the app. Furthermore, the bite-size style of video TikTok is known for causes dopamine hits in the user, getting them addicted as they chase that next dopamine release. An effect of the quick video style is a shortened attention span. As video lengths are limited, creators need to catch the attention of the audience quickly and for as long as possible, this means videos usually move quick, are loud, bright, and are filled with overstumulation. This causes the attention span of users to drop.

Chinese Intervention

Being a Chinese company, TikTok is under the whim of the CCP (at least in China). The company that owns TikTok, ByteDance, is legally required to hand over any and all information they have on users to the Chinese government when they are asked. Chinese TikTok also shows its users more nationalistic, pro-Chinese centred posts in comparison to international TikTok. Chinese TikTok is feeding propaganda to its users.

Being Fucking Terrible

This bit is a lot more personal, so bear with me here, alright? TikTok is fucking unfunny as hell! Seriously, it seems like every day there's another stupid unfunny fucking meme or trend that spawns from that bloody hellhole. Last month the latest fad from those fuckers was some adult sippy-cup that had fucking lead in them. No fucking wonder TikTok users seem to be so braindead! They're literally drinking lead! What a fucking embarrasement! There was also that stupid fiasco with half the site pleading for a murderer to be found not guilty under the pretext of "He's too cuuuuuuuuute!!!". Fuck off mate, this stupid app has done more harm than good in my opinion. TikTok memes are so unfunny, they're like the successor to those awful Vine memes from 2015. Usually, they're just stupid videos with random collections of sound effects thrown in. Apparently that's "funny" nowadays. The users themselves are also insufferable, you'd think that their brains must be rotten to the core. They can't talk right, can't pay attention for more than 2 seconds at anything, and feel the need to be on that app all the time. TikTok is for morons.