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TikTok’s rotten deal stinks even more after Meta and Google rulings

Critics of social-media platforms are rejoicing over two rulings last week that aim to hold Meta and Google accountable for harm inflicted on kids — but what Tik Tok, likely the worst offender in this space?

Our biggest single gripe with President Donald Trump may be that he end-ran the bipartisan law that should’ve forced China’s government to completely divest from the company, or see it banned in the United States.

Boo, too, on the Republicans in Congress who stepped aside and let him do it.

Yes, Beijing-controlled ByteDance now owns “only” about a fifth of TikTok, with US firms controlling the rest, but that doesn’t address the nature of its algorithm — which evidently pushes the Chinese Communist Party line on top of promoting toxic behavior.

Post investigations established what TikTok pushes on 14-year-olds: Girls got videos “promoting underage drinking and gun violence,” plus content encouraging them to wallow in depression, anxiety, extreme loneliness and other mental health issues; boys got “flooded with misogynistic, racist, sexual and violent content.”

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Maybe last week’s verdicts — a New Mexico jury hitting Meta for $375 million over child-safety violations that aided sexual predators, another one in Los Angeles awarding $6 million in damages for how Meta’s Instagram and Google’s YouTube got a young user addicted and deepened her depression and anxiety — will be followed by similar pain for TikTok.

But the issue should be moot.

To backtrack: In 2024, in a rare show of bipartisanship, Congress ordered the platform banned — unless China fully divested from TikTok’s owner, ByteDance, by January 2025.

But soon after taking office Trump decreed that deadline suspended, continuing to intervene until the partial sale finally got done.

But that deal didn’t address key concerns about the platform’s massive data collection, surveillance and national-security threats, not to mention the enormous harm it does to kids — and even adult users — who get hooked on it.

Experts worry that China might still be able access the mountains of personal data the app collects, and Beijing can still manipulate content, as it maintains control over what its algorithm emphasizes or downplays — spreading anti-American propaganda, censoring criticism of China and flooding users with outright lies.

Numerous critics blame TikTok, for example, for sickeningly strong support for Hamas among 18- to 24-year-olds.

Meanwhile, the app has seen steady growth among Americans, with 37% of adults now using it (63% under 30), as well as 68% of 13- to 17-year-olds, per the Pew Research Center.

About 20% of teens report being on it “constantly.”

A lawsuit filed this month by the Public Integrity Project demands the 2024 law be enforced in full: Make ByteDance sell, or close down TikTok.

But it’ll be months or years before that case resolves; meanwhile, TikTok continues on.

Whatever damage other social-media networks have done, TikTok’s ties to Beijing should make its harm impossible to ignore.

Trump has done a lot of good for this nation, but that doesn’t justify this damage.

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