TikTok is one of the worst platforms out there, it pioneered the autoplaying endless scroll short form attention span destroying shit that has now infected Instagram and YouTube in particular. An outright ban of any particular platform is unlikely to be effective, but mandating changes to all platforms as a blanket rule could be desirable.

In principle, I agree that under 16s should not be using algorithmic platforms, but inevitably it's just going to be another way to try to force adults to hand over their ID to 3rd parties, just to be leaked in a year or two while a sizeable portion of those over the age of 12 just finds a dodgy free VPN to skirt around it, or worse finds sites on the dark web or similarly illicit sites that don't adhere to such regulation.

Ideally, getting platforms to change for everyone would be better, all of this:

"

1. implement a process of parental verification for teenage users

2. change its "dopamine-manipulating recommendation algorithms"

3. remove many image filters that change one's appearance in photos

4. end autoplay of video content

5. prohibit the creation of multiple accounts

6. end disappearing or "ephemeral" posts, such as Instagram Stories "

Sounds like a great idea. Social media has become increasingly parasocial and a way to access quicker but ultimately less fulfilling entertainment (so less time commitment per individual piece of content), rather than what it was purportedly originally for; a way to keep in contact with friends and family, in the case of YouTube a place for sharing and viewing creative and/ or educational content or in the case of Twitter, following messaging from public figures. It always had a lot of these problems, but it is depressing to think about how much worse and more addictive it's become, even just over the past few years since covid.

I personally dont see how tik tok is any worse at "brainwashing" people than facebook, Instagram, twitter or any other form of social media,

More needs to be done closer to home

TikTok was the first to popularise short form video in portrait with endless scroll on a wide scale. Instagram used to be a photos app, YouTube had one format of (usually) landscape long-form videos with a defined end for each video (no automatic looping), Facebook's feed was at least more text and photo based and Twitter has had plenty of other cough fascist reasons for going downhill, but it's also not been immune to the autoplay trend either, if maybe a little less than the others. Because of TikTok's success in holding users attention longer by ironically pushing shorter content, just a lot more of it, the trend spread to other platforms and made them all worse.

They all already had a lot of downsides, but the short form video style of addictive content is by far the worst culprit keeping people there longer than they intend to be. Worse still, with so many short videos with a variety of content, people are less likely to even remember a lot of what they've been watching once they're finished.

The biggest problem is monetarising "content creating" so every Tom, D and Harry thinks they are a "content creator" because its an "easy way to make money"

17 hours ago, Hadji said:

People do a lot of stupid stuff on there which is dangerous and sometimes fatal. There was a driving on the wrong side of the road challenge people seen on TikTok and they sadly crashed and died

This was a thing before the ticking of thr tock. Remmeber Owling? Harmless, but an example of a trend way before.

omg just ban snapchat already

My biggest problem with tiktok is it’s aesthetically awful, also it sucks

also snapchat was/is completely different! It also sucks and that’s why I deleted it when I was 25

Edited yesterday at 04:571 day by dhwe

On 17/08/2026 at 23:13, Hadji said:

People do a lot of stupid stuff on there which is dangerous and sometimes fatal. There was a driving on the wrong side of the road challenge people seen on TikTok and they sadly crashed and died

That just sounds like people are idiots and not the platform.