Following reports of Chinese officials accessing U.S. user data, nearly 60% of Americans want social media app TikTok removed from app stores, according to a recent survey.
Read the full story
A Minneapolis preschool teacher who instructs three-year-olds describes themselves as “a bratty queer sl*t here to make other queer sl*ts happy,” generating waves of controversy online.
The teacher, Micha, goes by @lostmercreature and @queerhoneybear on TikTok where they post content about being an educator and their “trans/queer” sex life. Micha also posts about their hatred of capitalism and private schools — despite admitting they “work at a private Montessori school.”
Read the full story
The nation’s largest organization of pro-life youth was censored by social media platform TikTok Monday after a video depicting Students for Life of America (SFLA) President Kristan Hawkins challenging a woke college student with the actual scientific facts about abortion went viral.
Hawkins called on TikTok to open the process for getting pro-life speech back on the app that contains significant abortion-related content.
Read the full story
Washington Post reporter Taylor Lorenz exposed the identity behind the “Libs Of TikTok” Twitter account in an article that widely characterized exposure of questionable school policy and problematic teacher-student interactions as “anti-LGBT.”
Rather than grapple with the issues the account brought to light — some of which resulted in discipline of teachers — Lorenz drew on interviews from left-wing activists at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the left-wing organization Media Matters, who predictably supported the narrative that exposing controversial classroom instruction to the public at large essentially amounts to bigotry for the transgender and gay community.
Read the full story
Dozens of TikTok “influencers” were given a White House briefing on the Russia-Ukraine war, Thursday, the Washington Post reported. In a Zoom call, National Security Council staffers and White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki reportedly provided to “30 top TikTok stars” the Biden administration’s talking points on “the United States’ strategic goals,” and answered a number of questions.
According to WaPo internet technology reporter Taylor Lorenz, “millions” of people are turning to the Chinese-owned social media app for information about what is going on in Ukraine.
Read the full story
Michigan’s Secretary of State Thursday announced that the state will join a bipartisan investigation into popular Chinese-owned social media company TikTok.
“Recent reports on social media’s impact on the mental and physical health of young people raise serious questions among attorneys general across the nation. Ultimately, we are concerned about protecting our youth,” Attorney General Dana Nessel (D) said in a press release. “I am proud to join my colleagues in this investigation. Given this is an ongoing investigation, I will not be discussing any details beyond this announcement.”
Read the full story
Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Friday he is launching an investigation into Chinese social media app TikTok over potential aiding of human trafficking and child privacy violations.
“Chinese-owned company TikTok may be complicit in child exploitation, sex trafficking, human trafficking, drug smuggling and other unimaginable horrors,” Paxton said in a statement Friday. “I will get to the bottom of these concerns and make sure Big Tech doesn’t interfere with the safety and security of Texans.”
Read the full story
TikTok is banning users from “misgendering” and “deadnaming” others in an effort to improve the social media platform, the company announced Tuesday.
The company announced the new policies in updated community guidelines released Tuesday, saying it will now explicitly ban certain practices classified under the umbrella of “hateful ideologies.”
Read the full story
Major technology companies and social media platforms have removed, suppressed or flagged the accounts of over 800 prominent individuals and organizations, including medical doctors, for COVID-19 misinformation, according to a new study from the Media Research Center (MRC).
MRC’s Free Speech America CensorTrack, an initiative that monitors acts of censorship across online platforms, identified over 41 instances between March 2020 and February 2022 in which doctors, scientists and medical organizations were censored, according to the results of a study shared with Daily Caller News Foundation.
Read the full story
Two teachers at an elementary school in Lakewood, Colorado have started what they call “Rainbow Fridays” to push LGBT content on children.
According to Denver-based KMGH, Slater Elementary School Social Worker Davanta Greer and Physical Education teacher Karen Schroeder “dress in rainbow gear at the end of each week to perform these dance numbers on social media.”
Read the full story
A 53 year old Minnesota TikToker pled guilty to impersonating a federal agent on Friday. According to the District of Minnesota U.S. Attorney’s Office, the TikToker had over 10,000 followers on his account where he used a fraudulent name and pretended to be a federal agent with the United States Department of Homeland Security.
Read the full story
Michigan’s 2020 Teacher of the Year openly promotes his political beliefs in his high school classroom.
Owen Bondono teaches ninth grade at Oak Park High School. He won Michigan’s Teacher of the Year in the 2020-2021 school district. He is also a TikTok personality, clocking in at over 11,000 followers.
Read the full story
A majority of Americans don’t trust major social media platforms, including TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram, to keep their data safe, according to a new poll.
Over 70% of American internet users say they don’t trust Facebook to responsibly manage their personal information or data related to their internet activity, according to the results of The Washington Post/Schar School poll released Wednesday. Similarly, 63% say they don’t trust TikTok to handle their data and 60% say they don’t trust Instagram.
Amazon and Apple were deemed the most trustworthy major tech companies, with just 40% of Americans saying they distrust the tech giants, according to the poll results.
Read the full story
China’s government is paying social media influencers in the U.S. to promote the Beijing Olympics and distract from diplomatic boycotts over its human rights violations, according to disclosures filed with the Department of Justice.
The Chinese consulate is paying Vippi, a New Jersey based public relations firm, $300,000 to have influencers on Instagram, TikTok and Twitch promote the Beijing Olympics, according to the disclosures. The influencers will also be required to promote U.S.-China cooperation on issues including energy and climate change.
The 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics have inspired diplomatic boycotts from the U.S., Australia and the U.K. due to China’s purported ethnic cleansing and torture of Uyghurs, a Muslim ethnic minority in Western China.
Read the full story
Libertarian organization Young Americans for Liberty says it recently posted a video in support of Kyle Rittenhouse that was subsequently censored by TikTok
In early December, the group posted a video in response to reports that members of the Arizona State University student body were protesting Rittenhouse’s online attendance at their university. The protestors called the acquitted teenager a “murderer,” and claimed he posed a threat to the student body.
Read the full story
The Massillon Police Department on Tuesday issued a warning to parents about a destructive “challenge,” inspired by the social media app TikTok.
During the “Kool-Aid Man” challenge, the social media users have broken down fences by kicking them down or colliding into them, like the style of the Kool-Aid Man in previous commercials.
Read the full story
Senate Commerce Republicans are whipping opposition to the nomination of Gigi Sohn, one of President Joe Biden’s picks for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
Biden nominated Sohn, former FCC counsel under Tom Wheeler and Ford Foundation alum, to an empty spot on the commission in late October, along with current acting Chair Jessica Rosenworcel to the permanent position.
While Republicans have been quiet in their response to the nomination of Rosenworcel, many are pointing to Sohn’s public statements on conservatives as reasons to oppose her confirmation.
Read the full story
Despite polls that suggest Generation Z leans further to the left than older Americans, one conservative education journalist has managed to gather a large following on TikTok.
Every day, Chrissy Clark, a Campus Reform alumna and current Daily Caller contributor and self-described education reporter, posts minute-long videos on the social media application covering the five underreported news stories that Americans should know.
Read the full story
A U.S. Senate committee investigating the promotion of material harmful to young people on social media expanded beyond Facebook and Instagram Tuesday to include the video-sharing sites YouTube and TikTok as well as the Snapchat messaging application.
Therein, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) deplored the health-threatening viral challenges (e.g. binge drinking, the infamous “cinnamon challenge”), enticements toward illegal drugs, encouragements to engage in drastic dieting and presentations of child-sex abuse that she said have been purveyed to children and teens via these websites. She raised particular alarm regarding minors she said have been led into illicit sexual relationships on Snapchat.
Read the full story
Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) sent a letter to all parents in order to address current “challenges” on the popular video app TikTok.
The apparent “challenges,” which schools officials have spoken out against, have led to theft and damages in schools across the country.
Read the full story
TikTok maker ByteDance announced Saturday it was limiting screen time for Chinese users under 14 years old.
The Chinese version of video sharing platform TikTok, called “Douyin,” unveiled a new “youth mode” feature that limits the use of its app for children under 14 to 40 minutes a day, its parent company ByteDance announced Saturday. The app will also be unavailable for children between the hours of 6:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m., ByteDance said, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Read the full story
Video sharing platform TikTok promotes sexual content to underage users through its suggestion algorithm, according to an investigation by The Wall Street Journal.
Investigators for The Wall Street Journal set up 31 fake TikTok accounts registered to users between the ages of 13 and 15 and studied their “For You” feeds, which consist of videos recommended to users by TikTok’s suggestion algorithm.
Read the full story
After former President Donald J. Trump attempted to ban TikTok, a popular video streaming social network, the Chinese-owned company has overtaken Google-owned YouTube in popularity in the United States.
“App users in the UK and US are spending more time on TikTok than on YouTube, a new report suggests,” BBC reported. “Data from app monitoring firm App Annie indicates that average time per user spent on the apps is higher for TikTok, indicating high levels of engagement.”
Read the full story
After her sorority at Louisiana State University kicked her out, Emily Hines says the school ignored her request for the incident to be investigated for possible bias.
Alpha Phi, a Greek Life organization independent of LSU, revoked Hines’ membership in April over her TikTok video that criticized Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine for her transgender identity. The seven-second video featured the Bee Gees’ song “More Than a Woman.”
Despite being told that the organization does not side with political views,” Hines told The College Fix she believes the decision was politically motivated.
Read the full story
President Joe Biden revoked an executive order that sought to ban downloads of Chinese-owned apps like TikTok and WeChat in the United States, the White House announced Wednesday.
Instead, Biden directed the Commerce Department to evaluate software applications connected with foreign adversaries like China, and “take action, as appropriate,” according to the fact sheet the administration released. The previous slate of executive orders were signed by former President Donald Trump, one of which sought to ban TikTok completely in the U.S.
Read the full story
Prager University, founded by radio host Dennis Prager, has been permanently blacklisted from Chinese-owned social media app TikTok.
“Tik Tok has permanently banned PragerU from its platform for ‘multiple violations’ of their community guidelines,” PragerU wrote in a tweet on Thursday. “This is blatant censorship.” The organization started a petition over TikTok’s blacklisting.
Read the full story
A federal judge blocked the Department of Commerce’s proposed restrictions on Chinese-owned social media app TikTok in an order Monday evening.
U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols’s order is the latest setback in the Trump administration’s attempt to effectively ban TikTok from the U.S. over national security concerns, according to Reuters. Nichols is the second federal judge to block the Department of Commerce’s TikTok restrictions after Judge Wendy Beetlestone blocked them on Oct. 30.
Read the full story
In an apparent display of coastal elitism, a new TikTok video tries to lampoon conservative Georgia residents as gullible enough to vote for either Raphael Warnock or Jon Ossoff — if someone dupes them into it.
The two Democrats want to represent the Peach State in the U.S. Senate.
Read the full story
A federal judge has postponed President Donald Trump’s threatened shutdown of the popular short-form video app TikTok, siding with a Pennsylvania comedian and two other TikTok creators who say Trump’s order hampers their free speech.
U.S. District Judge Wendy Beetlestone on Friday blocked an upcoming Commerce Department action that would have effectively banned TikTok in the U.S. by cutting it off from vital technical services.
Read the full story
A Tennessee high school student has filed a lawsuit against Overton County School District (OCS) for banning her Biblical shirt while allowing other free speech. The shirt read: “HOMOSEXUALITY IS A SIN – 1 Corinthians 6:9-10.”
OCS claimed that the student’s shirt violated Livingston Academy dress code policy. Although the policy doesn’t define “offensive messages” or “sexual connotations,” Principal Richard Melton determined that the student’s shirt fell under those criteria.
A federal judge blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to block TikTok Sunday, giving the Chinese social media platform an opportunity to forge a deal with Oracle.
The decision gives TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, more time to approve a deal with Oracle and Walmart, media reports show. Judge Carl Nichols’s decision came hours before President Donald Trump’s ban of the video-streaming app was expected to take place.
Read the full story
President Donald Trump said Saturday that he approved a transaction between Oracle and TikTok that allows the Chinese application to stay in the United States.
Part of the arrangement requires the newly U.S.-based TikTok company to direct $5 billion toward teaching American children “the real history of our country,” Trump told reporters at the White House, Bloomberg reported Saturday. The president later told rally attendees in North Carolina Saturday that he is establishing a “large fund for the education of American youth.”
Read the full story
U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) this week appeared on FOX Business Morning to discuss what she said was TikTok’s link with the Chinese Communist Party.
Blackburn discussed these matters with host Maria Bartiromo.
Read the full story
The U.S. Commerce Department said Friday it will ban Chinese-owned TikTok and WeChat from U.S. app stores on Sunday and will saddle the apps with technical restrictions that could seriously limit their functionality in the U.S.
The order, which cited national security and data privacy concerns, follows weeks of dealmaking over the video-sharing service TikTok. President Donald Trump has pressured the app’s Chinese owner to sell TikTok’s U.S. operations to a domestic company. It is not clear how the latest prohibitions will affect a deal recently struck by California tech giant Oracle aimed at satisfying U.S. concerns over TikTok’s data collection and related issues.
Read the full story
Sen. Josh Hawley called on the Trump administration Monday to reject the partnership proposal Oracle reached with TikTok.
The Missouri Republican argued in a letter to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin that the partnership won’t prohibit the Chinese Communist Party from controlling the app. Hawley said the Treasury Department’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which is responsible for approving or rejecting the deal, should reject anything other than a complete break from China.
Read the full story
The short-video app TikTok has chosen Oracle as its corporate savior to avoid a U.S. ban ordered by President Donald Trump. The U.S. government will review the prospective deal.
That much is known. Everything else is confusion, at least to outsiders.
Read the full story
TikTok CEO Kevin Mayer resigned from the Chinese-owned application after less than four months on the job, CNN reported Thursday morning.
“The role that I signed up for — including running TikTok globally — will look very different as a result of the US Administration’s action to push for a sell off of the US business,” Mayer said in memo to employees obtained by CNN. “I’ve always been globally focused in my work, and leading a global team that includes TikTok US was a big draw for me.”
Read the full story
Video app TikTok said it will wage a legal fight against the Trump Administration’s efforts to ban the popular, Chinese-owned service over national-security concerns.
TikTok, which is owned by China’s ByteDance, insisted Monday that it is not a national-security threat and that the government is acting without evidence or due process. The company said it will file suit against the government later Monday in federal court in California. A copy of the complaint could not be obtained.
Read the full story
President Donald Trump on Friday gave the Chinese company ByteDance 90 days to divest itself of any assets used to support the popular TikTok app in the United States.
Trump’s executive order said there is “credible evidence that leads me to believe that ByteDance … might take action that threatens to impair the national security of the United States.”
Read the full story
Roughly a third of TikTok’s 49 million daily users in the United States are 14 years old or younger, The New York Times reported Friday, citing internal documents.
The Chinese app’s workers noticed videos from children who appear much younger that remained on the video-streaming platform for weeks, a former employee told the Times. The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), passed in 1998, requires internet companies to obtain parental permission before gathering data from adolescents under 13.
Read the full story
One of President Donald Trump’s biggest supporters inside Silicon Valley is acting behind the scenes to rescue TikTok’s U.S. operations while the president considers the app’s future, according to recently published media reports.
Doug Leone, a Sequoia Capital global managing partner, is pressing U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House adviser Jared Kushner to find a solution to keep TikTok in the U.S., The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday, citing sources familiar with the discussion.
Read the full story
TikTok threatened to sue President Donald Trump Friday for signing an executive order prohibiting individuals from communicating with the Chinese social media app’s parent company over the next 45 days.
The executive order, which also impacts Chinese app WeChat, was issued Thursday night “without any due process,” TikTok said in a press statement.
Read the full story
President Donald Trump on Thursday ordered a sweeping but unspecified ban on dealings with the Chinese owners of consumer apps TikTok and WeChat, although it remains unclear if he has the legal authority to actually ban the apps from the U.S.
The twin executive orders — one for each app — take effect in 45 days. They call on the Commerce Secretary to define the banned dealings by that time. While the wording of the orders is vague, some experts said it appears intended to bar the popular apps from the Apple and Google app stores, which could effectively remove them from distribution in the U.S.
Read the full story
Tuesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed all-star panelist Clint Brewer to discuss Trump’s potential ban on TikTok and whether Joe Biden will show up to debates.
Read the full story
Two days after President Trump told reporters that he plans to ban TikTok from the United States, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo suggested in an interview with Fox News that executive action may soon be taken against many other apps owned by Chinese firms.
Trump remarked to journalists aboard Air Force One on Friday that he could ban TikTok “with an executive order,” suggesting that the president has made up his mind about the popular short video platform. TikTok, which is owned by Chinese tech conglomerate ByteDance, has been at the center of a months-long debate over whether the data that it collects from American users could be exploited by China’s government.
Read the full story
TikTok has hired several Democratic and Republican operatives to lobby the U.S. governmental amid concerns that the social media platform represents a national security threat.
The company hired several operatives recently to lobby on TikTok’s behalf, including Michael Hacker, who worked as a senior advisor to Democratic House Majority Whip James Clyburn of South Carolina, CNBC reported Friday. TikTok hired two executives from the Internet Association as well, according to the report.
Read the full story
Two Republican senators on Thursday introduced a bill aimed at banning federal employees from using Chinese social media app TikTok on their government-issued phones, amid growing national security concerns around the collection and sharing of data on U.S. users with China’s government.
Read the full story
TikTok reinstated a pro-life group’s account Friday and cited “human error” after the platform said Live Action was permanently banned from TikTok Thursday.
Read the full story
WASHINGTON/SAN FRANCISCO – The U.S. Army is undertaking a security assessment of China-owned social media platform TikTok after a Democratic lawmaker raised national security concerns over the app’s handling of user data, Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy said Thursday.
Read the full story
U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) told TikTok on Tuesday it must put an end to Chinese-linked efforts to collect data from American children.
Read the full story