TikTokers worry that they won’t be able to “educate” kids if TikTok is banned

TikTokers worry that they won’t be able to “educate” kids if TikTok is banned،

The purpose of a system is what it does. That's not what he claims to do.

Reuters has compiled a new report titled “Content Creators Worry About Miseducation in a World Without TikTok,” showcasing several TikTokers' concerns about a possible TikTok ban.

As you probably know, the government considers TikTok to be a national intelligence danger. The goal is for ByteDance to sell its interests in the viral short video app, or risk being banned in the United States. If everything goes as planned (if the bill passes and Joe Biden signs it), ByteDance will have 165 days to divest from TikTok. If it did not transfer control of TikTok to a US-based company, US app stores (like those of Apple, Google and Samsung) would not be allowed to offer TikTok in the country .

The report tells the story of an anonymous public school teacher in a small rural Southern town, who made her students watch grammar lessons she assigned to them via TikTok. This is what she says:

In one day I had a thousand subscribers, in a week I had ten thousand and in six weeks I had a hundred thousand subscribers. In six months, I had a million and a half. When you talk about banning, you're talking about taking away access to high-quality educational videos from people who used them to improve their education.

Now she has 5.8 million subscribers on TikTok, but its educational content is now under threat.

Plastic surgeon Dr. Youn, who 8.4 million subscribers on TikTok, says: “There's a huge segment of TikTok where you get your news, so it's about being educated. »

Another TikToker with over a million followers says “TikTok is a wealth of knowledge.” This account educates preschool-age children with topics like “body positivity” and “trans identity.”

None of this worries Karen North, a professor at the University of Southern California, who warns her students that personal data is at risk on TikTok: “My concern with TikTok is less about the information provided or manipulated or whether it is biased towards one message or message. another,” North, founder and former director of USC Annenberg’s digital social media program, told Reuters.

“It's more about what kind of personal information people are voluntarily giving up to an entity that doesn't have the same privacy standards as us (the United States). This is the big problem with TikTok,” she added.

I can feel my editor's growing panic behind me, so I'm doing my best not to turn this into a rant, and injecting my personal opinion on the effect of TikTok on the population, and especially on children, it's worth so better stop right away. Some food for thought: if the government gets what it wants, who will be next after TikTok? Or, for example, if it's sold to a US-based company, does that mean that all of a sudden there won't be any problems with TikTok and other social media platforms ? Not to mention “freedom of expression”…