The passage of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act in 2024 signaled that the United States would not allow the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to use TikTok as a tool of foreign digital manipulation against Americans, especially Generations Z and Alpha.
Despite being granted 270 days to divest and find significant American buyer interest, ByteDance refused to sell. Now that an extension has been granted, it is crucial that we follow through on this commitment, not only to address national security concerns but also to reassure younger generations that our government is serious about confronting China and protecting America’s digital future.
TikTok Targets Vulnerable Segments
The CCP deliberately created TikTok as a weapon designed to control how young people in America think, consume information, and engage with the world.
The combination of TikTok’s robust algorithm and the rapid, short-form nature of its videos cultivated a large, highly addicted user base, particularly among the American youth, who are especially vulnerable to habit-forming digital consumption. According to a presentation shown to ByteDance’s top officials, 95% of smartphone users under the age of 17 use TikTok. This user composition is by design—according to TikTok officials, young people like me are a prime audience for exploitation, as many people my age “do not have the executive function to control their screen time.”
As a 22-year-old, I have seen firsthand how TikTok has fundamentally altered the way my generation consumes information, especially news and current events. According to a February 2025 poll from The Vandenberg Coalition, 92% of people aged 18-29 reported seeing content about the US presidential election on TikTok last year, and 44% said it actually changed their mind about a candidate. This is despite just 27% of people in my age group saying they intentionally use TikTok to follow US politics. TikTok is clearly shaping young people’s perspectives—and China is well aware of its power.
We have seen how the CCP harnesses TikTok’s algorithm to directly push divisive and harmful content to young users. For instance, TikTok has proliferated videos glorifying Hamas’ October 7 attacks against Israel, venerating Osama bin Laden’s Letter to America, and depicting how to cross the US Southern Border illegally. The app also exposes America’s youth to content featuring suicidal ideation and pedophilia.
Time is Running Out for TikTok
Further, when the TikTok bill came to a vote in the House of Representatives last spring, the app sent push notifications urging US users to contact lawmakers and oppose the legislation, prompting a flood of calls from young children. That level of influence, controlled by a company bound to follow CCP directives, should concern all Americans—especially my generation, who will bear the consequences of today’s influence campaigns and subsequent policy decisions to address it.
Despite this evidence, though, Gen-Z does not appreciate the national security implications of TikTok’s Chinese ownership as much as older generations. In the Vandenberg Coalition’s poll, 35% of respondents aged 18-29 said they were “not concerned at all” about TikTok’s direct ties to the CCP, nearly double the number of those aged 30-49 and 50-64, and over eight times the number of those over 65 years old.
Some argue that calls to ban TikTok are less about addressing the CCP threat and more about stifling free speech and catering to large American tech companies. People look for parallels. If we were really serious about getting tough on China, people ask, why does the US federal government still allow the CCP to purchase farmland around US military installations and allow China to engage in other predatory practices?
These arguments reveal a broader distrust among my generation regarding the government’s commitment to confronting China, which has only grown since TikTok was granted an extension to continue operating in the United States in January.
However, this current moment is an opportunity to reverse Gen-Z’s skepticism. The number of my peers who were “not concerned at all” about TikTok’s Chinese ownership dropped by 10% after being informed about the implications of Chinese national security laws, and 74% already expressed some level of concern about the Chinese government weaponizing the app to spread propaganda without any prompting.
When given options for TikTok’s future, 60% of respondents aged 18-29 supported either a full ban or a forced sale, the same measures proposed in last year’s TikTok bill. This shows that my generation is not oblivious to the CCP’s malign influence campaign—we just need more transparent communication and decisive action to verify that the government is genuinely committed to protecting us against China.
Enforcing the TikTok bill —whether through a forced sale or outright ban—is a critical first step towards sending a clear message to young Americans: the government hears us. It is determined to counter China’s efforts to manipulate our generation’s digital future. If we fail to act now, we risk the future harbingers of the American experiment becoming complacent to our generational challenge, allowing the CCP to influence the future of American society for generations to come.
About the Author: Ethan Minkoff
403Forbidden
March 5, 2025 at 11:26 am
This is THE silliest, stupid’est article that has ever appeared on 19fortyfive, a site which I have visited over MANY years now.
TikTok is not a tool of Anybody, only that TikTok is has become the numero uno target of american goebbellian propaganists similar to the kind that existed during the unspeakable mcCarthy era.
McCArthy era or the red scare era, or the I rather be dead than red Era, is clearly being resurrected, or attempting to be resurrected today by completely totally garbage articles such as this.
Still, freedom of opinions is
fully valid, as mcCArthy is long gone and joe biden, censor-in-chief, is no more in office.
Have a nice morning/early afternoon.