TikTok: it's the social media app which has come to define our perception of Gen Z, and which has firmly embedded itself | dG1fWWVnV0t5MEF5elE
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00:00TikTok has very much become a way for the young generation to express ourselves in every way.
00:10You can be yourself. You're at home, you're filming, and there's always going to be like
00:14millions of people watching you. You never know when you can blow up.
00:24I think every young kid's dream is to be successful online.
00:28The Chinese social media platform, TikTok, has changed the internet.
00:33It's become the most popular app in the world.
00:37There's fishing videos, there's cooking, you can make skits, singing, dancing,
00:41literally everything you can think of, TikTok has.
00:48It's not an app on their phone anymore. It's their livelihood.
00:51It's how they communicate with their friends. It's how they see their world.
00:54That's a part that I don't think everybody has adjusted to yet.
00:59We're really at risk of having generations of young people that have formed identities in response to something that a technology platform prescribes to be the new normal.
01:11Behind the shiny dance videos, the platform is leading people down dangerous paths.
01:17I'd like to think that I wouldn't have struggled with an eating disorder if I hadn't downloaded TikTok.
01:24My claim with TikTok is that they are harvesting huge amounts of data illegally without the consent of children or their parents.
01:32If you just look at TikTok in isolation, it seems innocuous.
01:36But it really takes place in this much larger context of data collection, artificial intelligence, and a real effort by the Chinese to consolidate influence in the region and across the globe.
01:47Tonight on Four Corners, TikTok.
01:51In a joint investigation with Hack on Triple J, we're going down the rabbit hole to reveal the dark side of the app,
01:58how the platform censors political content and harvests children's data,
02:03and how the app's powerful algorithm exposes people to misinformation and dangerous content.
02:10Available now on Video On Demand.