So: What began as a harmless beef between two influencers has now become propaganda against young folks of minority communities.

Yes, there's alarming content on TikTok. Guess what? There's a LOT of that on YouTube & Twitter too. Your problem should be with society, not TikTok.

A quick #thread on this (sorry, I have more to say):

Yes, there's some horrifying content on #TikTok, but there are sexual harassment pranks on YouTube, not to forget all the Nazi content. Most social platforms are cesspools of hate, because our *society* is a cesspool of hate.

But where we see the positive in other platforms, we are unable to see that in TikTok because it has 'cringe' content. Not because most of it is horrifying, but because most of it features people outside of the class, caste, community, religion and privilege circles we come from.

It's not so much that we don't understand TikTok's content, it's that we don't live that life. So when we find it 'cringe' or worth mocking, subconsciously, we are looking down on that life, not just on that content.

(Here, I'm talking about the stuff that's *not* inappropriate)

Most social media apps so far have had a social hierarchy:
First the privileged use it, that's what makes it 'cool'.
Then the middle class uses it, that's what makes it 'massy'.
But when it is finally accessible to the lesser privileged sections of society, it becomes 'cringe'.

TikTok is perhaps one of the only platforms that became successful because it was accessible to ALL: you didn't need to have an expensive phone or edit software on your laptop or even the kind of artistic understanding that we call 'talent' (basically: what's familiar to us).

It requires common, regular, ordinary people to have a bit of fun and let their hair down. It is a privilege-agnostic platform! It's the democratization of self-expression! And that's why it is invaluable.

Because we CANNOT gate-keep who gets to create and who gets to express.

Content is not owned by only those with money, and expression is not the right of only those with privilege. Just because something isn't 'cool' to us, doesn't mean it shouldn't exist!

When we judge the young people on TikTok, we need to judge the society that conditions them.

In asking to #BanTikTok, we are infringing on the rights of everyone getting to express *equally*. And I find that unfortunate.

REGULATE the platform. And while at it, regulate ALL PLATFORMS. Because hate exists on all, except that on some it wears more expensive clothes.

To make TikTok content better, we need to make society better! Let's make sure that young people with lesser privilege aren't conditioned to look at violence against women and harassment lightly.

But that requires hard work.
The easy way: Let's look away, and ban TikTok?

Sigh.

#endthread