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When headlines popped up earlier this month that the Biden regime was using TikTok influencers to spread their propaganda about Ukraine, the vast majority of conservative news outlets used it as a punchline. Even on the left, some took jabs at it. SNL did a skit making fun of the White House move.
But as much as the older, politically aware class of Americans might think of it as a desperate ploy or just a comical sign of the times, the Biden regime was actually making a brilliant move. Their actions were lacking; they’re just as oblivious to how TikTok works as the rest of us. But the idea was a good one and if they’d done it properly, the really could have made an impact.
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TikTok is the most visited website in the world. More people visit it daily than Google. More videos are watched on it daily than on YouTube. And there’s more interaction on it than Facebook. Once you throw in the fact that it’s also the most used mobile app in the world, it’s a wonder that so few political aware adults are paying much attention to it. They need to. It’s the ultimate grooming tool that brings children, teens, and even adults into a perverse worldview.
On today’s episode of JD Rucker Live on Red State Talk Radio, plus the replay on The Midnight Sentinel, I’ll explain why TikTok is the biggest reason for the rise of LGBTQIA+ teens and preteens. More kids are drawn into thoughts of sexuality and sexualization by TikTok than by every public school teacher in our woke public school system. And there is no other draw into a life of addiction that comes close to what TikTok is doing to our kids.
The article below by Dr. Leonard Sax MD PhD gives a solid overview of what TikTok is really doing and how it’s doing it. My only complain is that he doesn’t ring the alarm bells loudly enough. Parents need to keep their young children off of TikTok, period. If you’re concerned about the curriculum in public schools, then you need to make sure they’re not on TikTok because it is exponentially more damaging to a young mind. What a teacher tells them is one thing. What a teen who is similar to them is much more damaging because it’s a peer they can relate to, a peer they believe relates to them.
It’s spreading like a plague. Kids watch TikTok videos and often have an experience as a result because of the AI-driven algorithm that gets to know them in hours, often even in minutes. It learns what they like and guides them to what it knows they’ll also like. Then, it guides them to things they may not realize they like but because TikTok recommends it they learn to trust it as an authority on THEM. Later, when they become TikTok influencers, their videos start infecting a others as well.
As for teens, the Doctor is correct in noting the risks of keeping them completely off the platform. That may be the approach for some parents, but as a non-doctor but expert parent, I can attest to the efficacy of talking to teens like they’re young adults and laying out the truth for them. If they’ve been raised in a God-fearing home, a good parent can prepare them for the inevitable exposure to TikTok. Tell them how it’s addicting so they can recognize it as it happens. Tell them that the evil forces of this world use TikTok to indoctrinate as many as possible into perverse sexual ideas and radical leftist ideologies.
The reason that TikTok is on so few radars for conservatives is because we’re not seeing the full effects. That’s coming as these brainwashed teens and pre-teens enter the real world and start making real world impacts. It will catch us off-guard. It will be inexplicable. It will be destructive. Worst of all, it will be much harder to reverse than anything we’ve seen in history. Once children are brainwashed, bringing them into a proper worldview becomes exponentially harder when they’re adults.
Today, TikTok is creating a Manchurian Citizenry. Those who are familiar with The Manchurian Candidate know of the fictional effects of a brainwashed and fully controlled individual. Imagine an army of millions who don’t even realize they’ve been indoctrinated into a destructive worldview. That’s what we’re seeing manifest before our eyes.
Here’s the article by Dr. Sax from the Institute for Family Studies blog:
Is TikTok Dangerous for Teens?
How much do you know about TikTok? Maybe you’ve heard of it but haven’t used it. Or if you have used TikTok, you may think of it as an app for sharing videos of teens doing funny dances or cute pets doing tricks, which it is. But it is more than that.
For starters, TikTok is now the world’s most downloaded app and the world’s #1 most visited website, ahead of Google (#2) and Facebook (#3). Every day, more than one billion different videos are viewed on TikTok. Experts agree that the key to its success is its unique algorithm. When you join TikTok, you are asked some questions about your interests and what sort of things you’d like to see. TikTok then offers you some of the most popular videos that match your interests and starts monitoring what you do. It takes note of which videos you watch and—crucially—how much time you spend watching them, and which videos you watch more than once. The algorithm then hones your preferences. Within hours, or even minutes, your videos become more specific, more customized to your interests.
The results are uncanny. “TikTok can read my mind” is a common refrain among young people, as the app soon starts serving up videos that are precisely what the viewer was hoping to see: whether it’s a funny cat video, or a video of synchronized swimming, or one about applying glitter make-up, or a video of a pretty girl dancing in a way that appeals to a particular teen boy and wearing precisely the outfit that boy finds most arousing, doing exactly the moves that the boy finds most irresistible. And the same is true of sexual variations. “TikTok knew I was bisexual (or gay, or trans) before I did” is a common trope online.
Is TikTok Harmful?
TikTok is customized. It can be addictive. But is it truly harmful to teens?
That depends on how a teen uses it.
Adolescence can be confusing. Young people are struggling to figure out who they are. Increasingly, they are looking online for clues and for guidance. Doctors at Texas Children’s Hospital used to see one, maybe two teenagers a year presenting with new-onset Tourette syndrome. Between spring 2020 and autumn 2021, that number skyrocketed to about 60. Psychiatrists worldwide—from the South Atlantic island of St Helena, to New Caledonia in the South Pacific, to almost anywhere on the planet where kids have access to the Internet—began reporting a surge of teenage girls self-diagnosing with Tourette syndrome. Many of these girls are shouting out “beans!” at unpredictable intervals. Psychiatrists in England call these girls “Evies” because their behavior resembles that of Evie Meg Field, whose TikTok videos have earned her more than 14 million followers and more than 500 million likes. In a characteristic video, Evie shouts out “beans” uncontrollably. In an earlier era, the sudden appearance of myriad teenage girls shouting out “beans” might have been called mass hysteria. Today, the preferred term is “social media induced illness.”
Other issues can lead quickly down a rabbit hole. Go to TikTok and type “how can I lose weight?” and it will offer many options. The TikTok hashtag #diet has had over 11 billion views. There, you will find videos encouraging viewers that simply doing some planks and leg lifts will result in becoming slim in just 16 days (that particular video has had over 32 million views). Scrolling through the videos, it’s easy to be drawn into a spiral of more videos that speak directly to an individual situation. Alyssa Moukheiber, a dietitian at a residential treatment center for eating disorders in northern Illinois, says, “The TikTok algorithm is just too freaking strong.” The algorithm sucks girls into a world that promises physical perfection for just trying a little harder.
Girls who post videos on TikTok soon discover that their online popularity is linked to their sexuality. Newport Academy is an Atlanta-based treatment center for eating disorders. Crystal Burwell, the program’s director of outpatient services, recently noted that 60% of the girls treated since last summer have posted “sexually inappropriate” videos on TikTok. A similar observation comes from Paul Sunseri, director of the New Horizons Child and Family Institute in El Dorado Hills, California, who is concerned about the growing number of girls who are posting sexualized videos on TikTok. “For a young girl who’s developing her identity, to be swept up into a sexual world like that is hugely destructive,” he says. “When teen girls are rewarded for their sexuality, they come to believe that their value is in how they look.” Sunseri estimates that about one-quarter of the girls at his clinic have posted sexualized content on TikTok.
Boys are not immune. A growing number of teen boys are getting sucked into TikTok’s algorithm, which often means they are seeing TikTok videos of young men who are bigger, more muscular, than they are. That can lead to “bigorexia,” boys becoming obsessed with acquiring the muscle-bound look exemplified by The Rock and the entire cinematic Marvel universe of he-men.
Advice For Parents
So, what’s a parent to do about TikTok?
The first step is for parents to have a frank conversation with their daughters—and their sons—about the dangers of TikTok. I have heard teen girls say, “I saw it on TikTok” with the same air of authority as a middle-aged woman a few years back might have said, “I heard it on Dr. Oz.” In both cases, the speaker is citing an authority they believe to be unchallengeable. Parents, make sure your kids understand that a TikTok video is not authoritative, even it has 10 million likes.
At what age should a child be allowed to be on TikTok? Jean Twenge, our nation’s leading researcher on how social media impacts child and adolescent development, recommends that no child under 13 should be on any social media, including TikTok. And I would add that many 13-year-olds aren’t ready. TikTok offers a curated version of their app for under-13s. Don’t use it. That watered-down version is designed to fuel interest in the grown-up version. Twelve-year-olds don’t like to be on the kiddie version of anything. And tweens quickly figure out that if they lie about their age, they can easily access the full version.
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As with any social media, the parent must limit, govern, and guide their teen’s use. At this time, we don’t have evidence that 10 or 15 minutes a day on TikTok, or social media in general, is harmful. One study of more than 220,000 teens found that the risk of bad outcomes began to increase after more than 30 minutes of social media a day, on average (see, for example, Figure 3). However, that study was published in 2019, based on data gathered before TikTok became the most-viewed social media for teens. An hour a day on TikTok is definitely too much. Kids have better things to do with their time than spending an hour a day on TikTok. So I advise parents to install parental monitoring apps to limit how much time kids are spending on TikTok.
That’s where many parents push back. One parent told me: “I think it’s important to show my daughter that I trust her. Installing a monitoring app implies that I don’t trust her. Besides, I already use the TikTok Family Pairing option, so that I can see what my daughter is doing in the app.” I remind parents that I see many teens who have created two TikTok accounts. One is the “clean” account which they show to their parents and which their parents follow on the Family Pairing option. The other is the real account, where the daughter is watching, or posting, the videos she doesn’t want her parents to see.
Then the parent says: “My daughter would never create a secret account just to deceive me.” I explain that if all the girl’s friends are doing it and advising her to do it, what is that girl supposed to say to her friends? It’s not reasonable to expect a modern American girl to say, “I know all you guys are doing it, but I won’t do it because I don’t want to deceive my parents.” The parent needs to allow the daughter to tell her friends, “I can’t do that, because my parents have installed this evil monitoring app that sees everything I do!”
Anne Sena is Director of Technology at St David’s School in Raleigh, North Carolina. She recently told me that she uses the Bark parental monitoring app to monitor and limit her teen’s online activities across social media, email, web browsers, and YouTube. She likes that Bark installs a VPN so that the controls are in place when her teen is outside of the home network, for example at a friend’s house or using a network provided by a cell phone. In Sena’s own home, she uses the Circle Home Plus device as well as the Apple’s screen time controls and Microsoft Family Safety to enforce time limits and provide an added layer of search protection on the family’s home computers. There are other similar monitoring and filtering programs out there, including the Canopy app, for parents to choose from.
“That sounds like a lot of work,” one mother told me the other day when I suggested that she follow Sena’s example. And it may be, especially for those of us who are not as knowledgeable about VPNs and screen time controls. But if taking these steps decreases the risk of more teens becoming anxious and/or depressed, I think the extra effort is worth it.
I recently spoke with a young woman who is a senior in college. She admits that she used to spend up to four hours a day on TikTok. But one of her professors inspired her to take control of her time, and she now spends 5 minutes a day, or less, on the app. She says she has reconfigured TikTok to show her only those videos that are closely related to her professional interests. She gives her professor the credit for inspiring her to cut back. I am inclined to give her the credit for finding the courage to govern herself—even when many of her peers can’t, or won’t.
Leonard Sax MD PhD is a practicing family physician and the author of four books for parents, including The Collapse of Parenting, which was a New York Times bestseller.
Five Things New “Preppers” Forget When Getting Ready for Bad Times Ahead
The preparedness community is growing faster than it has in decades. Even during peak times such as Y2K, the economic downturn of 2008, and Covid, the vast majority of Americans made sure they had plenty of toilet paper but didn’t really stockpile anything else.
Things have changed. There’s a growing anxiety in this presidential election year that has prompted more Americans to get prepared for crazy events in the future. Some of it is being driven by fearmongers, but there are valid concerns with the economy, food supply, pharmaceuticals, the energy grid, and mass rioting that have pushed average Americans into “prepper” mode.
There are degrees of preparedness. One does not have to be a full-blown “doomsday prepper” living off-grid in a secure Montana bunker in order to be ahead of the curve. In many ways, preparedness isn’t about being able to perfectly handle every conceivable situation. It’s about being less dependent on government for as long as possible. Those who have proper “preps” will not be waiting for FEMA to distribute emergency supplies to the desperate masses.
Below are five things people new to preparedness (and sometimes even those with experience) often forget as they get ready. All five are common sense notions that do not rely on doomsday in order to be useful. It may be nice to own a tank during the apocalypse but there’s not much you can do with it until things get really crazy. The recommendations below can have places in the lives of average Americans whether doomsday comes or not.
Note: The information provided by this publication or any related communications is for informational purposes only and should not be considered as financial advice. We do not provide personalized investment, financial, or legal advice.
Secured Wealth
Whether in the bank or held in a retirement account, most Americans feel that their life’s savings is relatively secure. At least they did until the last couple of years when de-banking, geopolitical turmoil, and the threat of Central Bank Digital Currencies reared their ugly heads.
It behooves Americans to diversify their holdings. If there’s a triggering event or series of events that cripple the financial systems or devalue the U.S. Dollar, wealth can evaporate quickly. To hedge against potential turmoil, many Americans are looking in two directions: Crypto and physical precious metals.
There are huge advantages to cryptocurrencies, but there are also inherent risks because “virtual” money can become challenging to spend. Add in the push by central banks and governments to regulate or even replace cryptocurrencies with their own versions they control and the risks amplify. There’s nothing wrong with cryptocurrencies today but things can change rapidly.
As for physical precious metals, many Americans pay cash to keep plenty on hand in their safe. Rolling over or transferring retirement accounts into self-directed IRAs is also a popular option, but there are caveats. It can often take weeks or even months to get the gold and silver shipped if the owner chooses to close their account. This is why Genesis Gold Group stands out. Their relationship with the depositories allows for rapid closure and shipping, often in less than 10 days from the time the account holder makes their move. This can come in handy if things appear to be heading south.
Lots of Potable Water
One of the biggest shocks that hit new preppers is understanding how much potable water they need in order to survive. Experts claim one gallon of water per person per day is necessary. Even the most conservative estimates put it at over half-a-gallon. That means that for a family of four, they’ll need around 120 gallons of water to survive for a month if the taps turn off and the stores empty out.
Being near a fresh water source, whether it’s a river, lake, or well, is a best practice among experienced preppers. It’s necessary to have a water filter as well, even if the taps are still working. Many refuse to drink tap water even when there is no emergency. Berkey was our previous favorite but they’re under attack from regulators so the Alexapure systems are solid replacements.
For those in the city or away from fresh water sources, storage is the best option. This can be challenging because proper water storage containers take up a lot of room and are difficult to move if the need arises. For “bug in” situations, having a larger container that stores hundreds or even thousands of gallons is better than stacking 1-5 gallon containers. Unfortunately, they won’t be easily transportable and they can cost a lot to install.
Water is critical. If chaos erupts and water infrastructure is compromised, having a large backup supply can be lifesaving.
Pharmaceuticals and Medical Supplies
There are multiple threats specific to the medical supply chain. With Chinese and Indian imports accounting for over 90% of pharmaceutical ingredients in the United States, deteriorating relations could make it impossible to get the medicines and antibiotics many of us need.
Stocking up many prescription medications can be hard. Doctors generally do not like to prescribe large batches of drugs even if they are shelf-stable for extended periods of time. It is a best practice to ask your doctor if they can prescribe a larger amount. Today, some are sympathetic to concerns about pharmacies running out or becoming inaccessible. Tell them your concerns. It’s worth a shot. The worst they can do is say no.
If your doctor is unwilling to help you stock up on medicines, then Jase Medical is a good alternative. Through telehealth, they can prescribe daily meds or antibiotics that are shipped to your door. As proponents of medical freedom, they empathize with those who want to have enough medical supplies on hand in case things go wrong.
Energy Sources
The vast majority of Americans are locked into the grid. This has proven to be a massive liability when the grid goes down. Unfortunately, there are no inexpensive remedies.
Those living off-grid had to either spend a lot of money or effort (or both) to get their alternative energy sources like solar set up. For those who do not want to go so far, it’s still a best practice to have backup power sources. Diesel generators and portable solar panels are the two most popular, and while they’re not inexpensive they are not out of reach of most Americans who are concerned about being without power for extended periods of time.
Natural gas is another necessity for many, but that’s far more challenging to replace. Having alternatives for heating and cooking that can be powered if gas and electric grids go down is important. Have a backup for items that require power such as manual can openers. If you’re stuck eating canned foods for a while and all you have is an electric opener, you’ll have problems.
Don’t Forget the Protein
When most think about “prepping,” they think about their food supply. More Americans are turning to gardening and homesteading as ways to produce their own food. Others are working with local farmers and ranchers to purchase directly from the sources. This is a good idea whether doomsday comes or not, but it’s particularly important if the food supply chain is broken.
Most grocery stores have about one to two weeks worth of food, as do most American households. Grocers rely heavily on truckers to receive their ongoing shipments. In a crisis, the current process can fail. It behooves Americans for multiple reasons to localize their food purchases as much as possible.
Long-term storage is another popular option. Canned foods, MREs, and freeze dried meals are selling out quickly even as prices rise. But one component that is conspicuously absent in shelf-stable food is high-quality protein. Most survival food companies offer low quality “protein buckets” or cans of meat, but they are often barely edible.
Prepper All-Naturals offers premium cuts of steak that have been cooked sous vide and freeze dried to give them a 25-year shelf life. They offer Ribeye, NY Strip, and Tenderloin among others.
Having buckets of beans and rice is a good start, but keeping a solid supply of high-quality protein isn’t just healthier. It can help a family maintain normalcy through crises.
Prepare Without Fear
With all the challenges we face as Americans today, it can be emotionally draining. Citizens are scared and there’s nothing irrational about their concerns. Being prepared and making lifestyle changes to secure necessities can go a long way toward overcoming the fears that plague us. We should hope and pray for the best but prepare for the worst. And if the worst does come, then knowing we did what we could to be ready for it will help us face those challenges with confidence.
See all the latest videos and articles patriots need to watch and read at Discern.tv.
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