The Prevalence of Effects of TikTok Imposed on Young People

The Prevalence of Effects of TikTok Imposed on Young People
Name
Institution
Course
Professor
Date
The Prevalence of Effects of TikTok Imposed on Young People
TikTok is an increasingly popular social media platform that enables its users to create short videos and share them with others online. The platform is most popular among adolescents who engage with their peers, with an estimated 500 million users globally (Bossen & Kottasz, 2020). The appeal of TikTok with such users lies in its ability to turn videos into viral phenomena, transforming individuals into online stars overnight (Koetsier, 2020). Consequently, the online social media platform significantly influences young people due to its ability to induce addiction, change, and influence behavior on a massive level.
Being a global social media platform, TikTok can negatively change and influence the behavior of its young users. According to Speare-Cole (2021), platforms such as TikTok contain extreme and violent extremist views that propel anti-Semitism among young people. Further, Grierson et al. (2021) state that TikTok has continuously propagated conspiracy theories on COVID-19 that discourage vaccination. More so, despite having community guidelines, a lot of content considered to be legal still reaches the masses and may contain videos that encourage self-harm (Grierson et al., 2021). Despite not reaching the threshold for criminal activity, such content poses a danger to highly impressionable young people.
The American government has been on the spot for allowing the continued usage of TikTok despite its dangers to young people. Recent attacks at the Capitol Building confirmed by the Department of Homeland Security showed that the platform was used to plan the attack (White, 2021). The social media platform owned by Bytedance, with headquarters in China, has previously been in a tussle with the American government due to its links with the Chinese government that pose a danger to national security (Montag et al., 2021). The lack of specific oversight that ensures moderation of the content has led to young people’s continued viewing of unchecked videos.
The impacts of...