Indiana Lawmakers Sue TikTok

The state of Indiana filed a pair of lawsuits against popular short-form video company TikTok on Wednesday, alleging that it is exposing children to illicit content, including sex, drugs and profanity. “TikTok is actively exposing our children to drug use, alcohol abuse, profanity and sexually explicit material at a young age,” said Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita. “TikTok is deceiving Indiana parents.”

Mature themes: Indiana has consumer protection laws that require companies to correctly label the appropriateness of their content by age.

• TikTok has a 12+ rating on the Apple App store.
• References to illicit themes of alcohol, sex and drugs must be “infrequent/mild.”
• The frequency of such themes is anything but.

TikTok is rife with videos about drugs, making alcohol taste like candy, how to be a stripper, as well as discussions and demonstrations of all manner of sexual depravity.

Chinese state involvement: Another part of the lawsuit is over privacy concerns. TikTok has long been dogged by reports of user information being accessible to the Chinese government. Indiana alleges that China is capable of using this data to blackmail or coerce American citizens.

This is a very real possibility. TikTok belongs to Chinese company ByteDance. In August 2021, the Chinese Communist Party appointed a director to one of the company’s domestic boards. It is highly likely that these security concerns are valid. But the moral concerns for young people are certainly just as valid, if not more so.

The Chinese government has banned TikTok in China. They have a much simpler version of the app, but even then, they allow a maximum of 40 minutes of use per day. By contrast, the average American teen spends 104 minutes each day on TikTok.

Psychological warfare: Could Communist China be using TikTok as a means to weaken and further destroy American morality? Late theologian and educator Herbert W. Armstrong wrote that communism is psychological warfare that “we don’t understand or know how to cope with.” It is specifically designed to “weaken us from within, sapping our strength, perverting our morals ….”

It is easy to underestimate the moral damage caused by apps like TikTok. It is even easier to dismiss the possibility that America’s enemies are deliberately trying to destroy us by destroying our morality. And too many Americans are more than happy to help them do it.

Learn more: Read our Trends article “Why the Trumpet Watches the Moral Decline in Britain and America” to fully understand the seemingly benign danger facing these nations.