Amidst this pandemic of covid 19, we're facing yet another endemic - Tik tok.

1. It uses people's private information.Here's a proof - In May, Canadian cybersecurity research unit, The Citizen Lab, had published a report documenting how WeChat was scanning of images and files shared on the platform to train AI for censorship in China. Though Tencent, the multinational which owns wechat denied it. But these are the grey areas. “We share your personal information within our group of companies,” WeChat’s privacy policy says. TikTok’s privacy policy, likewise, says, “We may share your information with a parent, subsidiary, or other affiliate of our corporate group.” TikTok is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, which also runs Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok. After security concerns flagged by several countries, ByteDance had said servers for the two apps are separate. Data from Indian users goes on servers in the US and Singapore. But TikTok can share user data with ByteDance subsidiaries, including Douyin. And Douyin does not operate by the same rules. Under 10 criteria for protecting China’s “national security”, Douyin’s privacy policy says, it “does not need authorisation to collect and use personal information." Also, TikTok bosses have already been fined £4.3million for collecting data on US kids including their names, locations and email addresses.
2. It also acts as a political tool for the Chinese government. It censors content that's mildly critical of Chinese government. Here's a proof - In less than a day after comedian Saloni Gaur, popular as Nazma Aapi, posted a video taking a dig at China, it was taken down from one of three platforms she had uploaded it on – TikTok, a Chinese app.There are videos on TikTok which show violence against women and animals and those are banned only when there is a lot of outrage. Her video was just an eye opener.
3. It doesn't filter content. It was banned by the Madras high court for three months in April 2019 after being accused of promoting pornographic content and exposing children to predators. Acc to a BBC Trending investigation, the video-sharing app failed to remove online predators who were sending sexual messages to teenagers and children. John Carr, one of the UK’s leading experts on child online safety, warned of the controversial app: “There’s no question an app like this is a magnet for paedophiles.” ByteDance, the owner of the app was fined $5.8 Million US dollars (8 million Aus) by the U.S Federal Trade Commission for not complying with the Privacy Protection law COPPA. But seems like it didn't affect the app owner at all.
4. Reduces attention span. Steve Kelman, a Harward University professor wrote a blog about his recent trip to China on Nov 04, 2019.In the blog, he mentioned: TikTok users receive a constant stream of new videos, with new stimulation, every 15 seconds. Going at a rapid pace from one micro-length video to another shortens attention spans - you must attend to a given stimulus for a mere 15 seconds, and then another one appears. And short attention spans, with concomitant weakened ability to concentrate, can in turn produce a number of negative effects, such as poor performance at work or school, inability to complete daily tasks, missing important details or information, and difficulties communicating in relationships. The relationship of users to TikTok is stupendously passive. I asked the student how he chose which videos to watch. The answers was he didn’t need to -- the app selected videos for him based on his past watching behavior. (Unlike many social media apps, selections are not based at all on who your friends are, but only on your own earlier behavior.)
5. Decrease in productivity. TIKTOK - the app was designed to kill time and is aptly named so and its actually quite harmful to use. Tiktok is extremely popular among teens but it is actually making us a lot dumber. It promotes imitation rather than innovation and creativity. Apart from loss of productivity, it resulted in an increase in loss of confidential information, defamation, misinformation and employee solicitation.
6. Increases mental health problems like depression, anxiety. Watching these videos for too many hours continuously, people develop poor or weak eyesight. If this wasn't enough, trends like dangerous new 'eye colour' phone flash on tiktok will definitely be enough. Worryingly, using a camera flash in your eye can lead to ‘flash blindness’ - temporary dark spots in your vision.
7. Banning it in several countries will lead to a huge decrease in the Chinese economy. In India alone, Tiktok earns more than 10 billion dollars from Indian users. ByteDance (a multinational, also the owner of tiktok) controls 23% of the Chinese digital app market. ByteDance became the world’s most highly-valued private startup, with a valuation of $78 billion after a SoftBank-led $3 billion investment round. So, banning tiktok will definitely make an impact.
8. Exploits cultural values.
9. Brainwashing innocent kids. Brands use this platform and targets kids and innocent audience effectively.
10. Normalizes crime and abuses. You must have seen a lot of animal abuse, rape and acid attacks, fake feminism, toxic masculinity and other such videos on tiktok. These videos not only affect the audience in a bad way, but also normalises the crime among them. For example, the gunshot in South India. A lot of people might remember how a person shot his friend accidentally just to shoot a video and upload it on tiktok.