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The TikTok documents: Stripping teens and boosting 'attractive' people
- metalman 2y agoI will review tiktok is bad china is bad tiktok algorythim is bad so china must sell tiktok to USA ,with the algorythim,because that is good
- Lucyj001 2y ago[dead]
- 000ooo000 2y agoCurious how tech-oriented parents here are approaching TikTok et al with their kids. My kid isn't walking yet, but for when the time comes, I'm not sure how I'll limit exposure to what I'd call "pure trash", but also give them freedom and the ability to 'fit in' with (inevitably) the rest of their friends using this stuff.
- raydev 2y agoMy now late-teens had complete access back when TikTok was called musical.ly. The youngest was 12 when we handed them iPhones. All we ever enforced with them was strict Screen Time lock at 9pm, and then a couple years ago we turned that off because they were already more conscientious than their mother and I are now. We still need to approve any app they install, but all the most Evil Mind Destroying Apps are on their phones, TikTok, Snapchat, IG, etc. They are fine, do well in school, and are about to be venturing out of our house with much optimism. I understand every child is unique. But you should understand your children's weaknesses and strengths, and build restrictions around that.
- stiltzkin 2y ago[dead]
- technotony 2y agoAlso I want my kid exposed to technology, to learn to use and develop with it, but how do you balance that with preventing the damages it seems to cause? We are delaying screen-time for my 2 year old till he's at least 5 or 6 but not sure when is the right time to introduce.
- 1over137 2y agoExpose them to old technology. They can experience new technology when (much) older.
- andrewinardeer 2y agoSo they'll suffer the angst and pain like I did begging my parents to upgrade the graphics card from CGA to EGA?
- geerlingguy 2y agoMaybe they'll have some respect for resource consumption (unlike 99% of software development these days) and they'll end up writing a text editor that doesn't run in an embedded web browser and soak up 6 GB of RAM to open a blank document!
- kevmoo1 2y agoMy 13-year-old just got her own phone. Wired up with https://www.pinwheel.com/ https://www.pinwheel.com/ She is NOT going to be touching social media or similar until at LEAST high school.
- Ylpertnodi 2y ago>She is NOT going to be touching social media or similar until at LEAST high school. Says you. Said me (several times). I failed. Got circumvented by three teenagers blessed with the same inquisitiveness that got me into tech.
- throawayonthe 2y ago[dead]
- Wowfunhappy 2y ago> but also give them freedom and the ability to 'fit in' with (inevitably) the rest of their friends using this stuff. I teach fifth grade at an upscale private school. None of the children in my homeroom have cell phones; one has an apple watch. I think more parents are becoming aware of the problem, which in turn makes social pressure less of an issue.
- djhn 2y agoWhich country’s system fifth grade? Or alternatively, which age are talking about? If it’s 13 year olds, that sounds very surprising and wildly impractical.
- Wowfunhappy 2y agoUnited States, so ten and eleven year olds.
- twodave 2y agoWe aren’t. As the company itself will admit when they don’t realize they’re going to be quoted, the goal is not to create healthy community but to compete for attention. It is by definition pulling you away from normal, healthy relationships. We refuse to harm our kids by subjecting them to this kind toxic trash.
- toomuchtodo 2y agoNo phone until early to mid teens, flip/dumb phone only until they buy their own.
- bubaumba 2y agosure, just don't forget, that will be the kid who chooses the shelter...
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- AlexandrB 2y agoIt's probably exactly backwards. Social media breeds narcissism.
- bubaumba 2y agoI haven't seen any research on this matter. How modern kids compare to their (grand) parents. Likely with free food for everyone and legal drugs more are choosing jobless path. One way is sort of a job. For example 'influencer', most of whom don't make enough for living, but hope one day..
- internet101010 2y agoThe proper term for this content is brainrot.
- xyst 2y agoKeep it simple dude. All they get is a basic device with text/RCS and call capabilities. I would be okay with giving a kid just a smart watch. No social media or smart phones until 16 y/o. Also making sure kids have friends in their community is a plus. Involve them in school programs, help guide them as they find their interest. For love of god, don’t give your kid an unlocked iPad with YT/TT/FB/Twitch/kick.
- ceejayoz 2y ago> Also making sure kids have friends in their community is a plus. A lot of them coordinate hangouts via social media, unfortunately. It’s a tough balance.
- nicksergeant 2y agoYup. This is what I see missing from all the non-parents or parents of kids under 10 on HN. Once middle school hits their whole friend/support system is probably on SnapChat and if you're not on there, you're instantly excluded from everything.
- nytesky 2y agoImagine growing up without a phone in the 90s. That’s what these Luddite patents are advocating. It’s hard. We actually have banned social media until 16, but fortunately iMessage was the defacto coordination and we accepted that. No TikTok until adults, for a host of reasons.
- nicksergeant 2y agoSame here. Hard no on YouTube and TikTok. Sadly everything happens on SnapChat in their friend groups and SnapChat has a terrible TikTok style feed that I wish to god I could disable somehow. It adds nothing to the experience for actually socializing with one's friends group and is simply designed for mindless scrolling and consumption. I hate it.
- asdf000333 2y ago
- latentsea 2y agoI repeated to my boy that the Chinese government uses it to spy on people and he won't go near it for that reason. Yay propaganda.
- filoleg 2y agoAnd when he finds out later in life that it was just propaganda, his trust in you and any warnings of a similar kind will go entirely away. Which carries a massive e risk of doing the exact opposite of what you intended (despite the advice itself, at the core, being pretty decent). Case in point, the massive failure of D.A.R.E. drug abuse prevention programs for children and teenagers in the US. Yay propaganda. Turns out that even when the advice itself is decent, you can easily sabotage it all in the long term by using those types of propaganda methods. All just for a short-term “win”.
- nkrisc 2y agoMy kid is 7. He has a Linux desktop he can use whenever he wants with no internet access from his user account. My wife and I abandoned all social media and we’ll probably get him a dumb phone when the time comes. I’ve heard the stuff some of his friends with more internet permissive parents parrot from YouTube and stuff and honestly it’s frightening. As for the good stuff that’s actually out there, I download for consumption offline. As someone who grew up in the 90s and learned touch type playing StarCraft online, the internet is not for kids.
- winterbloom 2y agoIf you do that, your kid won't fit in and will be a social outcast
- toomuchtodo 2y agoBut at least they’ll be functional with a potentially positive trajectory vs their peers.
- threeseed 2y agoHumans especially children need to be part of healthy social groups. Being excluded is not setting them up on a positive trajectory.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- cortesoft 2y agoSocial skills are probably the most important and valuable skills to success in life
- AlexandrB 2y agoSocial media and staring at a screen destroy social skills. I know, I lived through 2 years of COVID.
- malshe 2y agoI have a 11 year old who is remarkably obedient. Credit to my wife. So we decided no social media for our child and she is pretty much fine with it.
- dools 2y agoMy daughter is 14. We will get her a mobile phone next year. She has an iPad and a laptop. She has issues with youtube shorts taking attention away from school work on her laptop. We will be maintaining screentime controls, and won't allow TikTok to be installed on her phone. She has a snapchat account, and uses it primarily for the messaging feature. She knows she's not allowed to view content not related to her friends and we regularly check up on that. We have the password to both her devices. Since we discovered she has problems with impulse control with YouTube shorts, she can't have her door closed if she has her computer or iPad in the room with her. She is an avid reader, and reads for hours a day, re-reads the same books, and on YouTube she mostly consumes recipes, book reviews and book related content (like fanfic) so by most standards she's pretty good. That being said, once she has a phone, she will not be allowed to use it in the house at all. Our youngest has fewer issues with impulse control, and uses her iPad for things like Duolingo, Toca Life and Finch the self-care pet and messaging friends on iMessage or Facebook Messenger kids. She doesn't have access to YouTube, but does have YT kids. She likes the tiny cakes channel and regularly brings me the videos because I find them very enjoyable also. They're both very heavily supervised and when they demonstrate there are problems, we take away their devices. My eldest has had an apple watch SE since year 7 and we use that for communicating, and she can get in touch with friends that way. I also bought a 4g nokia with has the SIM for the same number in it (I had to use my backup iPhone to set up her watch) and if she is going somewhere further or longer than a school day she takes that for safety reasons. My youngest will follow the same trajectory, we talk about the risks with them often, and they aren't allowed phones at school (by the school) and have had regular online safety sessions provided by the school. Australia is also seriously considering legislation to criminalise allowing children under 16 from having any social media accounts. Note that we only got them iPads in 2020 because of home schooling, prior to that we had given them iPhone 5s each to listen to podcasts and music. We always used screentime controls, and had them set up with family sharing and their own iCloud accounts, they have never (even as children) been allowed to use either mine or my wife's phones, we never let them watch or listen to anything during dinner or on car rides under 2 hours (a rule that still stands).
- aaron695 2y ago[dead]
- game_the0ry 2y ago> Curious how tech-oriented parents here are approaching TikTok et al with their kids. Curious why parents don't limit their kids screen time. Not 'fitting in' is not an excuse. This is a parent problem, not a TiktTok problem.
- mrgoldenbrown 2y ago>One document shows one TikTok project manager speaking candidly about the time-limit feature’s real goal: “improving public trust in the TikTok platform via media coverage,” the TikTok employee said. Our goal is not to reduce the time spent.” TikTok's response is to claim quotes like this are out of context, but they also seem unable or unwilling to provide the context in which statements like this are OK.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- pragmomm 2y agoSo where's the outrage from American parents and public that China owned and controlled TikTok is exposing underage kids to pedophiles? Why is support of TikTok ban declining? https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/09/05/support-for-a-us-tiktok-ban-continues-to-decline-and-half-of-adults-doubt-it-will-happen/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/09/05/support-f...
- hedora 2y agoPresumably because the US owned networks are just as bad. There are many people (myself included) that oppose a tiktok ban but would happily support more stringent rules that outlawed tiktok’s bad behavior and applied equaly to facebook, youtube and musk’s ego project.
- surgical_fire 2y agoIs any ad-fueled corporate social media any different? Talking about shit such as Twitter, FB, Instagram, etc. I mean, they all use underhanded tactics and psychological tricks to keep you hooked and scrolling, TikTok is far from being a sole evil here.
- highwayman47 2y agoAgreed, TikTok is just the best at it; plus it is the only viable non-US threat to US tech giants, therefore it’s the villain.
- threeseed 2y agoTikTok isn't remotely a threat to any of the US tech giants. And the idea that Meta has never been considered a villain is just laughable.
- juunpp 2y agoThe US is in an economic war with China. TikTok is just part of their current beef. Not to say that TikTok isn't toxic; of course it is. But Instagram and Facebook are, too. "Considered a villain" -- this means nothing unless action is taken. Meta has just gotten, in two whole decades, a few mock interviews in Congress and not more than that, left untouched primarily due to Section 230 and the convenience that a mass social network of 2B+ users worldwide happens to be US-based (not fiscally, of course.) And that is after the various leaks showing how it psychologically manipulates teens, lends itself to electioneering and genocide, etc. TikTok, on the other hand, has made it all the way to Congressional ban level in just a few years.
- jedimastert 2y agoTikTok is, in my opinion, the distillate of the algorithmic attention approach. Everything even remotely community building or social is stripped away until there is just the feed. Just the algorithm.
- 2y ago
- Geeek 2y agoI am obviously a bit early, as my oldest is only 7, but my wife and I decided to force ourselves to delay getting our kids (7 & 4) their own media device, such as an iPad and go straight to a laptop when it becomes a necessity in school. My 7 year old, with immense attention issues, is obsessed with reading and being creative, I could not imagine her being at her reading level if she had an iPad or some other form of digital media consumption. I can not imagine how rotten her brain would be if she had access to Tiktok or Instagram.
- zeroonetwothree 2y agoMy daughter has an iPad (we limit to 2 hours of screens) but she also loves reading and will read for hours a day.
- Geeek 2y agoTwo hours a day?
- SapporoChris 2y agoI take to indicate they're reading physical book and perhaps other physical media.
- threeseed 2y agoWe have an entire generation of people i.e. us growing up with computers and TVs. There is no evidence that it has had any negative effects. The problem is exclusively with social media. And in particular the way it is having young kids being shaped by adult role models e.g. Andrew Tate, Mr Beast who don't have their wellbeing in mind. And being subjected to adult themed content in volumes we've never seen before.
- asdf000333 2y agoI saw the negative effects of smartphone access firsthand all around me when I was in middle school and the iPhone 3G had come out, which predated influencers. Kids became antisocial.
- nox101 2y agoMy friends with young kids 3-11 all let their kids use iPads. All of the kids seem well adjusted, able to read (a worry I saw), etc. I have no idea what limits they have but the kids are social, they don't hide on their iPad when people visit but instead interact with the parent's friends. The point being, unlike lots of comments here, I haven't seen any evidence of ill effects of young kids have access to electronics. I have no idea what these parents do and what limits they place, only that they didn't need to ban electronics from their kids lives to raise good kids. Of course it's anecdata. One family, 2 daughters, 5 and 8. Another, son 11. Another son 11, daughter 7. Another, daughter 3. I have also seen the opposite. Kids who can't function if their screen is taken away and are anti-social. But given the other kids, it doesn't seem to be the screen that's the problem.
- Geeek 2y ago>I have no idea what limits they have. I think that's the key part here.
- raydev 2y agoNo, I think the key is that the kids haven't been banned from using them but are still fine.
- nashashmi 2y agoThere are visible signs of kids being influenced by devices. And some parents recognize some of these signs immediately and some later. It would be a long and twisted argument that the influence is harmful or not. But as they are the parents of the children, you need to respect the influences they identify as being unsuitable for their children, for the children they hang around, and for children in general.
- tessierashpool9 2y ago> it doesn't seem to be the screen that's the problem that is not a surprise really. a happy child will prefer real life interaction while an unhappy child will try to hide somewhere.
- nl 2y agoI'm a 90s kid. My parents didn't let us have a TV. TV shows were a social object: in the 90s you'd come to school the next day and discuss what you watched. You signaled your in-groups by what shows you liked and what you didn't like. I had none of that. I had friends, but only because I got very good at hiding my oddities. I was disconnected from my peers and learned a set of behaviors that have fucked up a lot of relationships longer term. Addiction to social media is terrible. But to those who ban your kids from social media entirely: how are you addressing the fact they will be isolated from their peers because of that.
- mr_cyborg 2y agoWhat kind of behaviors?
- geerlingguy 2y agoYou go out of your way to put your kids into more in person social interactions. Local events, school extracurriculars, sports teams, organizing get togethers with neighbors (and generally inviting neighbor kids to come play in the backyard whenever). Some of those things are easier than others for a family to take on, but in a strange turn of events, the various social media "bubbles" mean one kid and the next aren't exposed to the same trending topics (like some kids don't even know what skibidi toilet is, while others are all into some NBA or NFL players, while others are following chess tournaments or LEGO stuff...). There's still enough real world events outside influencer bubbles that you can keep social media (mostly) out of a kids life and not cause that kid to be on an island. There's a balance between media exposure and overprotection, too. Every parent has to find it. It's one of the most difficult aspects of parenting once your kids are old enough to talk!
- drivebyhooting 2y agoThat is really terrible and I worry for our kids being anti media iconoclasts. If only there were a community for likeminded families.
- nimos 2y agoIf the Amish could read this they would be dabbing so hard right now.
- nashashmi 2y agoI believe the lawsuit brought by the states against TikTok is a part of a broader mission to arrest control over TikTok in the US at a sweeter price. And while I don’t think TikTok is an angel, i see the whole consolidated effort at “taming” TikTok as being for show and claim of positive reformations. It’s disingenuous. It’s deceptive. It’s conspiratorial.
- not_a_bot_4sho 2y agoWhat do you think of the similar lawsuits against Meta?
- smittywerben 2y agoThis won't be popular opinion but I think the tech industry is out of control with targeting kids. Like seriously my job in the banking industry was more ethical than this.
- raydev 2y ago> This won't be popular opinion but I think the tech industry is out of control with targeting kids Seems like the majority opinion every time the subject comes up on HN, and X, and on Facebook, and in discussions with people in real life and so on.
- smittywerben 2y agoNo, I want enforcement of 2252a and sending website operators to prison. I've never heard my opinion because if that was the majority opinion, why hasn't it happened?
- skylurk 2y agoIn what way is the banking industry a low bar for ethics?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- xnx 2y ago> "took active steps to promote a narrow beauty norm" People are going to flip out when they hear how Hollywood does casting. /s
- langsoul-com 2y agoAlgorithms focusing on beautiful people is no surprise. Look at any social media and the attractive ones gain more attention, this means better engagement thus screen time.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- wiihack 2y agoIt is absolutely mind boggling to me that even when we are aware of all these issues there isn’t an immediate reaction to it in terms of just shutting these platforms down till they fix their issues
- djhn 2y agoI know many 90s kids that had a complete ban on video games at home, myself included. I am now pleasantly surprised that while I find many games impressive and can appreciate them as feats of engineering, art and game design… I don’t get a level of enjoyment out of them that would risk addiction or avoiding other life responsibilities. It’s never the first or even the top tenth choice of activity to do on a day off. I may have lost out on many a great experience, but the amount of free time I’ve gained relative to many men my age is worth it to me.
- kelnos 2y agoMy parents were skeptical of video games, but bought me a NES for Christmas in 1986 (or maybe it was '87?) after much begging. My memory is fuzzy about a lot of things in life (even much more recent things), but I still fondly remember spending time with friends in the neighborhood, going to each others' houses, and playing Nintendo. Through luck or nearly-unnoticeable parental restrictions, we never became addicted, and still spent plenty of time outside playing in yards, riding our bikes, and exploring the woods. These days I game occasionally, but fill most of my time with other things. I think complete bans on most things as a kid isn't the way to go, and can be harmful, even. Granted, today's social media makes me rethink that...
- anal_reactor 2y ago> I may have lost out on many a great experience, but the amount of free time I’ve gained relative to many men my age is worth it to me. Is this life or just existence?
- djhn 2y agoThere are many ways to spend your time and money and they reward you in different ways. I can appreciate games for the feats of engineering and works of art they are same as I can appreciate wines or sports and careers with high demands on your time. I don’t judge or look down on people who enjoy games, wine, golf or hard work, but I would be ashamed of myself if I were to mash CoD, drink excessively, take training for weekend-warrior triathlons too seriously or push myself to burnout and an early grave at a startup to the detriment of my personal relationships and responsibilities as a parent. Given how widespread all of these behaviours are it’s certainly a risk, and it’s liberating to know that I’m highly unlikely to go down at least one of these paths.