TikTok: Not Healthy For Our Youth
Parents, please take note of the caption for this article’s graphic. From security concerns to the mental health of our kids, TikTok is not healthy for our youth. My campaign will not use TikTok. When I am Sheriff, the Orange County Sheriff’s Office will explicitly not use TikTok.
At a time when we need to energize our kids and encourage education, we also have to battle TikTok. Law enforcement agencies and law enforcement officers should lead by example and cease their activity on TikTok. The risk to life outweighs notoriety.
As Sheriff, I will explicitly ban the use of TikTok as a social media communication platform while on-duty or working off-duty as a law enforcement officer. Deputies may opt to use TikTok on their personal time and on their personal devices but hopefully they will elect not to do so for a variety of security and negative social reasons. Shockingly, the current social media policy for OCSO does not ban the TikTok social media platform even though the federal government has banned TikTok application on all government devices for security reasons. Moreover, OCSO has deputies assigned to federal task forces and must ensure a security vulnerability does not exist in exposing classified material.
Research shows it only takes 17 minutes for TikTok’s algorithm to start serving “…a stream of anxiety and despair to teens.” We ask parents to monitor their kids on social media, yet adults are setting the example for TikTok’s use and ultimately support a business that researchers and psychologists have determined hurts our youth. We can do better. We must do better.
