On the Chinese side it's good business to appeal to the cesspool, because that's what Western platforms are also doing, and succeeding at. If they ran TikTok i

On the Chinese side it's good business to appeal to the cesspool, because that's what Western platforms are also doing, and succeeding at. If they ran TikTok in the West they same way they do in China, with as many quality of life and content restrictions, it wouldn't work. One might argue that that enforcing screen time limits, maybe age requirements, and having algorithms prioritize educational (and propaganda) content would result in a better, healthier and less toxic social media environment but many Americans would consider that nanny-state censorship and mind control and such an app wouldn't be as entertaining or popular. The only reason it works in China is a degree of authoritarian control over media that isn't (currently) legal here. I don't doubt that given a more free market TikTok would be forced to regress to the same mean.