Why TikTok is still Gen Z’s go-to social media platform – even if Chinese-owned app may not have their best interests at heart
- Warnings about app’s collection of user data and interference by its China owners has not lessened teenagers’ love for the video-sharing platform
- Last month TikTok said it is ‘not influenced by any foreign government, including the Chinese government’
The media executive had a dire message for Kayla Curry and her classmates: if you have TikTok on your phone, delete it.
The executive, who had come to talk to journalism students at Missouri State University in the American Midwest, was concerned about the app’s Chinese ownership and the potential that TikTok could be used to spread disinformation, according to Curry.
Curry joined TikTok in September. She is a pretty typical user of the short video app: scrolling, sometimes for hours, watching an endless stream of videos that TikTok’s mysterious algorithms guessed she would love. But as she read about the off-screen dimensions of the app, about who decides which videos get seen and which do not, she started to worry. And she processed that worry by making a TikTok video joking about it.
“Apparently TikTok is owned by a Chinese company that data-mines user information and sells it to the Chinese government,” Curry said, directly addressing the camera. “Yikes. But honestly it’s a small price to pay,” she continued, “because this app is free and therapy is not.” Her video has more than 370,000 views.