Parents-Rights Group Launches Seven-Figure Ad Campaign against TikTok as Senate Weighs Divestment Legislation

A new parental-rights organization is spending seven figures on a national ad campaign against TikTok. The group seeks to sound the alarm about the platform’s influence on minors.

The American Parents Coalition is airing an ad campaign, “TikTok is poison,” emphasizing the harms done by TikTok to the mental health of children within minutes of opening the app. An estimated 41 percent of children use TikTok, and the average user spends two hours on the platform each day, the ad highlights.

A study conducted last year on the detrimental content on TikTok found eating disorders and suicide were promoted to children within minutes of joining the platform. Suicide-related posts on TikTok have accumulated over 8 billion views on the platform, a different study found. Parents have brought lawsuits against the platform for the Blackout Challenge, a viral trend encouraging kids to choke themselves until passing out, leading to multiple deaths.

“As parents, we would never allow our children to spend time around people who speak positively about suicide or encourage anorexia. Yet these dangerous themes reach millions of impressionable children and teenagers every day on TikTok,” American Parents Coalition executive director Alleigh Marré said in a statement provided to National Review. Marré is the mother of three children.

“Backed by the Chinese Communist Party, TikTok has given America’s youth access to pornography and propaganda right at their fingertips – jeopardizing their sanity and safety with its addictive algorithms. We are calling on all parents to help us stop this digital poison.”

House lawmakers overwhelmingly passed legislation earlier this month designed to facilitate TikTok’s divestment from China-controlled parent company ByteDance. The bill passed unanimously out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee on its way through the chamber. It faces a much more difficult path through the Senate as TikTok lobbies heavily against the legislation.

A former ByteDance executive alleged in a wrongful termination suit the company is an extension of the Chinese Communist Party. The apparent connections between TikTok and the CCP are highlighted in a separate seven-figure ad campaign by State Armor, a group of national-security professionals.

An intelligence assessment publicized on March 11 warned of the national security implications of TikTok continuing to operate in the U.S. under Chinese control.

“China is demonstrating a higher degree of sophistication in its influence activity, including experimenting with generative AI. TikTok accounts run by a PRC propaganda arm reportedly targeted candidates from both political parties during the U.S. midterm election cycle in 2022,” the assessment’s “malign influence operations” section asserts.

FBI Director Christopher Wray testified earlier this month and said ByteDance is beholden to the CCP when questioned by Senator Marco Rubio (R., Fla.). TikTok believes the divestiture legislation will result in the company’s ban because a buyout from ByteDance is supposedly infeasible.