Social Work Tech Talk: Free Speech, Organizing, Education, and TikTok
by Gina Griffin, DSW, MSW, LCSW
(NOTE: This opinion is 100% my own. It does not reflect the views of this publication or my employers.)
I should begin by telling you that I am biased, and that I love TikTok. I am a surly old GenX who loves technology, and TikTok has captured my imagination, along with 150 million other U.S. users (Segers, 2023). I spend far too much time on the app, like a love-struck tween. I’m going to attempt to explain to you why TikTok is lovable, and why it has important social relevance. Then, I’ll try to explain to you why TikTok is problematic. And finally, I’ll try to explain to you why TikTok would be a great loss if it was universally banned in the U.S.
It took me a while to find TikTok. Instead of finding it during the pandemic lockdown, like almost everyone else, I found it after. I was experiencing a massive case of burnout, and was about to quit my decade-long job as a trauma therapist with the same agency. I did some research on self-care during burnout, and one of the things that was suggested was to get lots of quality sleep. I have only ever been a short sleeper. I’ve spent the past thirty years or so sleeping five hours a night, and that seemed just fine. But my mind and body demanded something else while I was struggling. So, I developed a new routine. I would round up the dog (who habitually puts himself to bed around 7 p.m.), crawl into bed super early, and put the lights off, and I would scroll TikTok in the early dark of those fall evenings. This was a guilty pleasure.
I knew all of the admonitions about blue screen light right before bed. And I’ve regularly reminded clients that scrolling before sleep is too exciting right before bedtime and should probably be avoided. But, by gosh, this worked for me. It took my mind off my worries. It made me laugh uproariously, which I had almost forgotten. It opened up new worlds for me. And it answered questions that I didn’t know I had asked.
I was pleased and amazed to find that the app has developed micro-communities around almost every subject that you can imagine. There is #booktok and #trektok and #dogtok. You can find new recipes on #cookingtiktok, and learn how to work out with #gymtok. People joke about being on “the wrong side of TikTok” when they wind up in an unfamiliar political community. Political exchanges can become ugly, but most people remain happily in their own communities. Notably, TikTok is known for viral dance videos, and these have helped the app to become wildly popular.
There are content creators who have become very famous and have succeeded in monetizing their accounts. There are top-tier users who have amassed more than 10,000 followers. The most successful have crossed into the 1M+ follower zone. They must actively create content, and they must be older than 18 years old. One such creator is Ophelia Nichols, aka @shoelover99, aka “Mama Tot.” She is known for her content that is centered around humor, kindness, and inclusivity. Another up-and-comer is Tanara Mallory, also known as @tanaradoublechocolate. She made her name by humorously reviewing recipes from other accounts. Her traditional opening line of “Everybody is so creative!” elicits laughter and inspires mild fear into the hearts of cooks and viewers everywhere.
There are lots of accounts that might interest a social worker. #Therapytok is pretty active. There are social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists, and mental health counselors. As with anything related to social media, it’s important to do due diligence and to try to follow people who are reputable. It’s also important to avoid following an account and then substituting that for actual therapy. With all of that being said, there are plenty of actual providers who provide good education on therapy and mental health. Dr. Antoinette Edmonds (@antoinettethegirlnextdoor) is a therapist who uses humor to provide education. She has also posted a list of 35 Black therapists on TikTok. This is significant because it can be difficult for clients to find therapists of color in their own communities. @thatgaysocialworker is a Canadian therapist who makes sure that the LGBTQIA+ community knows that they can find representation in community treatment. Other practitioners, such as psychiatrist @drkalimd, are advocates for quality care for all clients.
Users in the comments of these posters often express relief that they are finally seeing representation in these professions, and that they feel seen and heard. They also often express their gratitude that the mystery of therapy and medication is being unraveled for them. Good content providers don’t provide advice or pseudo-treatment. But they do provide good education via this informal and non-intimidating access to providers who can offer general information and education. This may help their followers to seek out help for mental health concerns with less fear.
One of the most significant uses of TikTok is that news flows quickly and easily. This can have positive and negative effects. TikTok has become the most popular search engine for GenZ (Huang, 2022). A lot of us, even GenXers, are now looking for their daily news from @underthedesknews, because V. Spehar has become a trusted news source. In her snappy suits and comforting tone, she delivers good and bad news in a way that is tolerable. I have also found that I’m often seeing news items days or weeks before they appear in mainstream journalism. This means that I also have to sometimes do my own research on the subjects to make sure they’re accurate. But the overwhelming number of stories that I have seen early have been reported accurately. As an example, I began to see stories about the Tennessee Three on @thetnholler about a week before they showed up on local or national news. The facts had been accurately represented, and I already knew about an important, developing story, many states away from me.
This type of speed and accuracy has made TikTok a popular tool for young community organizers. Millennials and GenZ use TikTok to organize politically and to make decisions about how they will vote. And I can’t help thinking that this is one reason why TikTok is being targeted.
Problems With TikTok
Alas, nothing is a wonderland. TikTok, like other apps, has many problems, and there is lots of controversy surrounding this bit of technology. There are the standard accusations of misinformation emerging via the app. As an example, there were (and still are) multiple providers and scientists on TikTok trying to combat an abundance of misinformation regarding the pandemic and the vaccine. New misinformation on this subject, as well as facts on gun violence, trafficking, and American politics (in addition to other subjects) is still rolling out. TikTok has sometimes been rated lower than the other popular social media platforms at managing the misinformation problem. (Kim et. al., 2022). It is also fair to point out that platforms such as Facebook have been at the forefront of these types of problems more publicly, and perhaps more often (Smith, 2021). The mismanagement of election misinformation by Facebook has become very well known. And there have been multiple leaks of user information, with the Cambridge Analytica case being the best-known (Confessore, 2018).
Another big problem at TikTok has been its very public bias against creators of color (Rosenblatt, 2021). There have been accusations that content creators who are non-white are not treated fairly or equally. They report that they are disproportionately subjected to shadow banning and community content violations that often see big content creators banned from the app. A shadow ban is when a provider’s content is not getting through to the feeds of their followers. They also may not be able to add new content or use hashtags to target their work to specific feeds. Creators of color have also often reported being harassed by other providers who do not like their content, or if they find it controversial. This can be content such as information on African American history or misogyny. If a creator has been targeted, multiple bad-faith users may report an account so that it will be banned. Sometimes, this is certainly merited. But providers of color seem to be targeted more often, and this is often reported to be at the behest of malicious users who simply want the account closed down.
Another known issue is that Black content creators are frequently denied credit for their creations when they’re used or copied by White creators (Colombo, 2021). This can deny BIPOC creators of significant income and of the opportunity to get ahead. TikTok has met with diverse content creators to discuss these types of issues in the past. However, many content providers report that nothing significant has changed for them. The viral dance and music content that has made TikTok so successful has often been driven by young creators of color. But when their accounts are unfairly constrained, they are held back from sharing the types of profits through the app that their White counterparts have achieved.
And, of course, there are the concerns and allegations that TikTok is sharing Chinese propaganda, sharing user data from the U.S. with the Chinese government, and that the parent company fiddles with content specifically developed for the U.S. To date there is no concrete evidence of these allegations (Zahn, 2023). The CEO of TikTok, Shou Chew, swears that they do not share user data with the Chinese government. However, politicians point to the fact that if China demands data, the organization would be unable to deny them (Zahn, 2023). Chew, under days of inquiry by the U.S. government, has continued to aver that U.S. data remains on U.S. soil. The U.S. branch of the company is currently managed from Culver City, California, and has other U.S. locations (Spangler, 2020).
U.S. politicians have demanded that TikTok be sold to a U.S. organization, which Chew has declined. As a result, the U.S. government has demanded that TikTok be removed from all government furnished devices (Hadero, 2023). Individual states have begun to consider state-wide bans, and Montana is the first state to institute a statewide ban (Fung, 2023). And there is legislation being considered for a national ban. India has already carried out such a ban, which cost TikTok one of its largest markets, according to Maheshwari and Holpuch (2023).
Concerns about the proposed legislation are that it reaches much more widely than TikTok, and that it will infringe on other first amendment rights for U.S. citizens (Tuccile, 2023). The RESTRICT Act would mean that anyone suspected of dealing with foreign enemies (listed as China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, and Venezuela) can be banned from using any technology connected to these foreign adversaries. This leads to further concerns about the impact on emerging technologies such as the bitcoin market, and interference with encryption technologies, as well as the right to free speech. Persons found guilty of these infractions could be faced with a $250,000 fine and imprisonment. And users who attempt to get around these new laws by using a VPN would also face punishment. Defenders of the law state that this wouldn’t apply to something as mundane as TikTok. But if that’s the case, then why name TikTok as the impetus for the legislation at all?
The 150 million TikTok users have been quick to let the U.S. government know that they oppose this legislation, but there is a fight on their hands. Many TikTok users have sworn that they will immediately campaign for the opposing candidate of anyone who votes to pass this into U.S. law. But the proposed legislation already has widespread bipartisan support.
The Loss
At the risk of sounding like an old geezer, I’ve been around since the inception of the Internet. I had Photoshop 2.0. I played Star Trek email-based role-playing games. And I spent two years doing telehealth from home, during lockdown. (And to be fair, I still do. I just work for myself now.) Which is to say that I’ve been in every type of online and digital community, and TikTok feels different. For all of its problems, I haven’t seen anything like it. It is a place where there is a home for everyone, no matter your beliefs, which makes it oddly and truly a democracy. It is a place where people can share their expertise, build their business, or just find emotional support if they need it.
On the morning of the Montana TikTok ban, I watched a video made by a young man who lamented that his remote business had been able to grow far beyond his dreams because the app has enabled him to reach past his physical boundaries, to create partnerships. Some users, like myself, are already mourning the possible loss of our beloved communities. And many are ready to fight the system to keep what we have. A full ban won’t be in effect for states like Montana until January 2024. The rest of us are waiting to see which way the wind will blow politically, and to see if we can save TikTok.
My personal feeling is that the app, in spite of many fears, can be and is being used in the service of free speech; organizing for social change; and providing valuable, specialized education to people who might not otherwise have access. At the end of the day, this may be why it’s been targeted for shutdown. I hope we’re able to keep it around and to do what we can to change and improve this technology and its community for the better.
References
Colombo, C. (2021). Charli D'Amelio was criticized by the 'View' host Sunny Hostin, who accused her of 'stealing' dances from Black creators. Insider, 6/30/2021. https://www.insider.com/tiktok-charli-damelio-sunny-hostin-the-view-black-creators-dances-2021-6
Confessore, N. (2018). Cambridge Analytica and Facebook: The scandal and the fallout so far. 4/4/2018. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/04/us/politics/cambridge-analytica-scandal-fallout.html
Fung, B. (2023). Montana lawmakers vote to completely ban TikTok in the state. 4/14/2023. https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/14/tech/montana-house-tiktok-ban/index.html
Hadero, H. (2023). Why TikTok is being banned on gov’t phones in US and beyond. 2/28/2023). https://apnews.com/article/why-is-tiktok-being-banned-7d2de01d3ac5ab2b8ec2239dc7f2b20d
Huang, K. (2022). For GenZ, TikTok is the new search engine. New York Times, 9/17/2022. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/16/technology/gen-z-tiktok-search-engine.html
Kim, D. H., Susarla, A., Shackelford, S. (2022). Experts grade Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, YouTube on readiness to handle election misinformation. Scientific American, 10/20/2022. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/experts-grade-facebook-tiktok-twitter-youtube-on-readiness-to-handle-election-misinformation1/
Maheshwari, S., & Holpuch, A. (2023). Why countries are trying to ban TikTok. 4/26/2023. https://www.nytimes.com/article/tiktok-ban.html
Rosenblatt, K. (2021). Months after TikTok apologized to Black creators, many say little has changed. NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/pop-culture-news/months-after-tiktok-apologized-black-creators-many-say-little-has-n1256726
Segers, G. (2023, March 21). Fear the wrath of the TikTok voter. New Republic. https://newrepublic.com/article/171281/tiktok-ban-backlash-young-voters
Smith, B. (2021). Inside the big Facebook leak. New York Times, 10/29/2021. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/24/business/media/facebook-leak-frances-haugen.html?auth=login-google1tap&login=google1tap
Spangler, T. (2020). TikTok opens new L.A. office in Culver City. 1/22/2020. https://variety.com/2020/digital/news/tiktok-opens-new-l-a-office-in-culver-city-1203476106/
Tuccile, J. D. (2023). The RESTRICT Act would restrict a lot more than TikTok . 3/3//2023.
https://reason.com/2023/03/31/the-restrict-act-would-restrict-a-lot-more-than-tiktok/
Zahn, M. (2023). No evidence of TikTok national security threat but reason for concern, experts say. ABC News. 3/28/2023. https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/evidence-tiktok-national-security-threat-reason-concern-experts/story?id=98149650#:~:text=But%20there%20is%20no%20evidence,Chinese%20government%2C%20cybersecurity%20experts%20said.
Dr. Gina Griffin, DSW, MSW, LCSW, is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker. In 2012, she completed her Master of Social Work at University of South Florida. And in 2021, she completed her DSW at the University of Southern California. She began to learn R Programming for data analysis in order to develop her research-related skills. She now teaches programming and data science skills through her website (A::ISWR) and free Saturday morning #swRk workshops.