Published October 30, 2024
Earlier this month, another bombshell burst over the heads of the beleaguered tech industry when 14 state attorneys general announced coordinated lawsuits against TikTok for knowingly and willfully exploiting young users. Recognizing that such users were the “golden audience” for the platform because of their inability to resist its addictive pull, TikTok executives designed their algorithms to attract teenagers in as little as 35 minutes while making only halfhearted efforts to suppress and remove dangerous and pedophilic content. If that wasn’t bad enough, sealed court documents in Kentucky’s suit were accidentally unredacted, giving reporters access to TikTok’s internal memos. The documents are utterly damning.
In one memo, TikTok’s research showed that “compulsive usage correlates with a slew of negative mental health effects like loss of analytical skills, memory formation, contextual thinking, conversational depth, empathy, and increased anxiety.” But since young users were most likely to use the app compulsively, they were particularly targeted. “As expected, across most engagement metrics, the younger the user, the better the performance,” said one document.
Click here to continue reading.
Brad Littlejohn was a Fellow in EPPC’s Technology and Human Flourishing and Evangelicals in Civic Life programs from 2022-2025. His wide-ranging research and writing encompasses work on the relation of digital technology and embodiment, the appropriate limits of free speech, the nature of freedom and authority in the Christian tradition, and the retrieval of a Protestant natural law ethic.
