That's cool to hear there's some wheat among the chaff. Seems like most technology comes with swings and roundabouts. My suspicion is it's simultaneously wonderful and horrible. That's how I remember the year I was on Twitter. I'm going out of my way to avoid installing the app cause I know my self-control isn't as strong as I often pretend it is. But I'll look for @etymologynerd on other platforms.

But to your point... yes... gate-keepers can keep out the riffraff. (And I'm not trying to be snarky with that last statement.) Taste-makers can steer the listening public towards some competent art. As a society we tend to swing back and forth between freedom and conformity. We're in a pretty "free" feeling era and the word "conformity" is almost a pejorative. Monoculture is dangerous, but sure, so is letting the moral equivalent of the Manson Family loose on your child's phone. (not implying TikTok is the modern Manson equivalent, just hypothesizing the existence of a really bad player in the digital realm.)

Is there a middle ground? Would we recognize it when we see it?

Do societal leaders and taste makers have a duty or right to discourage the use of media platforms? I always got the impression the reason TikTok was singled out was 'cause it's from China (and Singapore as well somehow.) I would love it if the people who are singling out TikTok for playing fast and loose with our dopamine regulatory system explained how western companies (Facebook, YouTube, Hacker News) aren't.

Feel free to stop reading at this point, if you haven't already. I'm well beyond replying (and mostly agreeing) to (with) your comment. Now I'm just rambling.

I have this memory of a picture of soviet workers sitting in an auditorium listening to classical music. It was around the 40s or 50s so I'm sure it was Tchaikovsky or Shostakovich or Rachmaninoff or Khachaturian. And they had completely blank looks on their faces like "okay. my boss says I have to be here, so I'm here." Me? I can't get enough of these guys and would definitely have a smile on my face if I got to get off work early to listen to them.

But... as taste-makers and culture gate-keepers, would we prefer to force people to consume "high culture" when all they want is TikTok? I mean, I would much rather read Louise Glück than watch Housewives of Some Random Town. (Sorry Glück folks, I'm just not a fan.) But if someone doesn't care for Henry Miller (any one of his books I could read over and over again), I would much rather they not be coerced into reading them. I love W. H. Auden and my spouse loves Bukowski. It's okay to enjoy what you enjoy.

I dunno. I think the article mentioned above seems a little gate-keepery. And I get it that we're worried about how people are being manipulated by media controlled by a foreign political power, but if we're gonna ban TikTok, maybe we should spend at least as much thought about what we're going to replace it with.