TikTok is, as they say, all the rage, but it could also be big trouble for the United States.
No, this isn’t some age-disparity rant akin to the pushback The Beatles received when they started their heartthrob campaign stateside. It’s not just that we don’t get it. In fact, it’s hard to use any social media app these days and not find yourself inundated with much of the same content.
The issue is that TikTok appears to be intrinsically linked to the Chinese government, and they may be using the app to essentially hypnotize the western world.
At least that’s the impression that the FCC chief is giving this week.
On Friday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “America’s Newsroom,” FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr declared that “TikTok is China’s digital fentanyl” and banning it “is a basic IQ test for the administration.” And China shows a “very, very different” version of the app in China than they do in the U.S.
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Carr said, “At the end of the day, TikTok is China’s digital fentanyl. A lot of people look at TikTok and they think it’s just a fun application for sharing dance videos or other funny videos. But that’s just the sheep’s clothing. Underneath of it, it operates as a very sophisticated surveillance app. It’s not the videos, but it’s pulling everything from search and browsing history, potentially keystroke patterns, biometrics, including faceprints and voiceprints.”
Carr would go on to describe how the reflective content of American TikTok is using a far more sinister algorithm than it is in China, and thus slowly poisoning US youth culture.
“Look, it’s — to your point, the application, the version of it that is shown in China is very, very different than the one here. And here, they’re doing things like displaying the blackout challenge, specifically to a 10-year-old girl, this was alleged in a court case, and that girl ended up strangling herself to death. So, we’re seeing very different content. … And my view is, given the lack of trust that we have right now in TikTok, that this is a basic IQ test for the administration.”
Digital fentanyl, indeed.
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