Tiktok videos ‘erode teen ambition in West’

Chinese phone app accused of purposely feeding ‘dumbed down’ content to Western youth

TIKTOK’S inane videos are “eroding ambition and motivation” in Western teenagers, the president of the British Chambers of Commerce has claimed.

Baroness Lane-fox of Soho, who is a former Twitter board member and cofounder of Lastminute.com, said the video-sharing app was bombarding young people with addictive content and keeping them glued to their phones.

The peer claimed Tiktok was purposely feeding Western teenagers “dumbed down” content while presenting Chinese young people with videos about “maths, science and the brilliance of going into space and invention”.

Lady Lane-fox, who was speaking at the Mindgym summit in London, said: “It is eroding something about ambition and motivation with what you can sit scrolling through.” Tiktok said that the claims were “simply untrue”.

The platform is owned by China’s Bytedance, which offers a sister app, Douyin, targeted specifically at the company’s home market. Lady Lanefox claimed Douyin pushed Chinese teenagers towards educational content while Tiktok was promoting “make-up tutorials to American children... to dumb down the content”.

Users under the age of 14 on Douyin are also shielded with a series of strict measures to prevent them from gorging on videos. They are limited to 40 minutes each day in the app’s “youth mode” between 6am and 10pm. The scroll of videos also includes a five-second pause between clips.

In the UK, Tiktok has introduced an optional time limit of 60 minutes per day for users between the ages of 13 and 18. However, this can be disabled easily. Lady Lane-fox’s criticism comes amid a growing backlash against Tiktok, which has faced claims of being a tool of influence and espionage for the Chinese government.

Like other social media apps, Tiktok has also been dogged by claims that it helps fuel a form of addiction. The company strongly refutes the claims.

Western governments including Britain have banned officials from installing Tiktok on their phones, and Montana became the first US state to issue a total ban on personal mobile devices in the state on Wednesday.

The state’s governor vowed to protect residents from alleged Chinese surveillance. Tiktok accused Montana of infringing freedom of speech laws.

Lady Lane-fox said: “I don’t think it should be banned, but I think we should be very careful.”

She added: “Separating the ownership structure properly feels right.”

Regulators in America have warned Tiktok it will be banned in the US unless it financially separates from its China-headquartered parent company.

Addressing Lady Lane-fox’s claims, a Tiktok spokesman said: “These claims are simply untrue. Our 150 million users across Europe come to Tiktok for discovery, creativity and learning.

“Tiktok has been an important tool for many young people, from growing a start-up business to launching careers in the creative industries.” The spokesman added that hashtags such as “Science Facts” had been viewed 2.3 billion times, while the trend of “Booktok” had helped young people find new things to read.

US security officials have repeatedly flagged concerns over Tiktok.

Christopher Wray, the FBI director, told a Senate hearing last year that the app could be used for “influence operations” by China.

Tiktok has also faced claims that China could force it to harvest data from users under Beijing’s strict intelligence laws.

The company has insisted it has never received such a demand and would refuse to comply if it did.