Jonathan Haidt, a social psychology professor at New York University (NYU), described TikTok as "uniquely awful" compared to other social media platforms due to its connections with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Haidt made this statement during an episode of the Firing Line podcast on March 29.
"TikTok is uniquely awful because of the national security risk," said Haidt. "The law in China literally says that Chinese companies must do what the Communist Party says. The fact that the Chinese Communist Party has access to extraordinary data, to microtarget Americans, they know exactly what each American wants, what they respond to, is unbelievable, and the fact is that TikTok is the most influential platform on what our children think."
According to CNN, President Joe Biden signed legislation in April that could potentially lead to a TikTok ban unless its parent company ByteDance sells the platform within 270 days. The deadline for this sale is January 19, 2025. It is anticipated that there will be significant opposition to this ban, given that over a third of American citizens use TikTok.
The Pew Research Center reports that 62% of American adults under 30 use TikTok, along with a majority of U.S. teens. Support for a U.S. TikTok ban has declined from 50% in March 2023 to 38% in Fall 2023. However, a majority of Americans (59%) still view TikTok as a threat to U.S. national security.
Research from Brown University indicates that social media addiction can reduce productivity and success in work, education, and other areas of life. It also makes individuals dependent on emotion-focused coping mechanisms rather than problem-focused ones, which are considered unhealthy. The "like" button on social media platforms functions as a reward system that elicits positive psychological responses. TikTok’s "For You" page uses a specialized algorithm based on user data and features videos typically lasting 15 seconds to keep viewers engaged.
A brief from the America First Policy Institute titled "Alarm Over TikTok Threat Reaches Critical Mass as Government Responds" states that the short-form video app is a subsidiary of Beijing-based ByteDance Ltd., which has ties to the CCP. The authors wrote that TikTok "serves as an ingenious data harvesting weapon for the CCP disguised as a social media platform and has become a dominant force in American youth culture." The brief cited research by security firm Internet 2.0, which found that TikTok "aggressively and surreptitiously collects data" from users' devices, including information about other apps on the device, Wi-Fi network details (SSIDs), phone numbers and IP addresses associated with the device or SIM card, contacts, folders and files, calendar events, and GPS information.
Haidt received his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1992 and taught in the Department of Psychology at the University of Virginia for 16 years before joining NYU. He has been researching the impacts of social media on teen mental health and political confusion since 2018.
