• podperson@lemm.ee
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    9 months ago

    I genuinely dislike TikTok (might be just old-man-shaking-his-fists-at-the-sky syndrome), but a complete ban on an app like that seems uninformed and quite the overreach. I think banning it on government devices is a good move, and I also think having everyone make informed decisions on who they give their personal information to is paramount (in this case, tin foil hat or no, you’re likely giving it to the CCP), but this seems like a clear case of a bunch of old timers making a pretty uninformed decision based on knee-jerk reactions to public opinion.

    • Wanderer@lemm.eeOP
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      9 months ago

      I kind of agree.

      There should be ways to sign up without the huge over reach of data. Education is also a must.

      But then after that the Internet should be free, it shouldn’t be controlled by big daddy government just because someone says something they don’t like.

    • Mog_fanatic@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Absolutely not saying you’re right or wrong at all. But I’m curious, does you’re opinion change at all considering that the majority of users on tik tok are under the age of 18?

      • Vespair@lemm.ee
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        9 months ago

        This just simply isn’t true.

        Granted, this is some random bullshit website, but they do list their sources, and they claim

        “1 in 4 TikTok users are under 20 years old”

        https://explodingtopics.com/blog/tiktok-demographics

        25% is hugely different than *the majority of users."

        Tiktok isn’t a kid’s app, has never been a kid’s app, and while it’s popular with kids if you are an adult with normal adult patterns you aren’t going to get served minor accounts to follow unless you are actively seeking that or have interests or hobbies with an big younger skewing (such as if you follow the #minecraft hashtag, I would imagine).

        • Mog_fanatic@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          You’re totally right. I misspoke. I should have said the largest demographic I suppose. I meant that users under the age of like 21 are by far the biggest “piece of the pie” of users.

          I’d push back a little that it’s not a kids app tho. I think they are targeting teens and young adults as the primary demographic but I could definitely be persuaded out of that. But having worked in a high school for the last 4 years, I can at least say that tik tok is those kids LIFE lol. It is all they think about. Eat sleep and dream tik tok with like YouTube and Instagram in the background.

          Also I didn’t mean at all that the app was pushing “minor” content or fetishizing young kids or anything in any way. That’s my mistake if it came off like that. I more meant to ask if the user was okay with users giving their data away even if they were a teenager as they would obviously be either much less “informed” or just don’t care about where their personal data is sent or why.

          But I guess it doesn’t matter. This is like the tenth time I’ve asked an honest question just got down voted a ton and not even answered lol I guess the lesson is to just not ask questions idk my bad