TikTok Turns Prisoners Into Celebrities — How Does It Harm Mental Health?

An intriguing irony surrounding the TikTok platform emerges when comparing its impact on individuals in different parts of the world. In Egypt, for instance, the very same app has resulted in the incarceration of aspiring “celebrities,” particularly young women striving for fame and financial gain. Conversely, in Western nations such as Britain, TikTok has transformed incarcerated individuals into unlikely stars.

On April 16, 2023, The Times reported a startling revelation: prisoners all over the UK have attained celebrity status, thanks to viral videos shot covertly on contraband cell phones within the prison walls. These videos have garnered millions of views, capturing the attention of the masses.

According to the newspaper, some of these videos feature prisoners boasting about their transgressions and partaking in illicit activities, including drug consumption and smuggling. The prisoners aim to maximize the reach of these videos, thereby ensuring their widespread circulation and potential financial profit.

Nevertheless, educational experts regard the newfound celebrity status of prisoners on TikTok as a negative consequence of this contentious Chinese application. TikTok has faced accusations of eroding moral values and negatively impacting mental well-being. Moreover, the United States and Europe are actively combating the app due to concerns surrounding addiction and potential surveillance issues, as reported by the French newspaper Le Monde in March 2023.

Apart from the security concerns raised for young users, TikTok, which operates under its parent company, ByteDance, and is headquartered in Beijing, faces ongoing scrutiny regarding the safety of user data. Despite TikTok’s consistent denial of sharing user data with the Chinese government, several countries, particularly those in the Western sphere, have banned the app from government-issued mobile devices. These actions highlight the persisting doubts surrounding data privacy and the perceived risks associated with TikTok.

While prisoners in Western nations enjoy their daily dose of fame through TikTok videos, the Egyptian fashion model Salma el-Shimy fell victim to the controversy surrounding the app.

El-Shimy’s posts, deemed “indecent” by Egyptian authorities, led to her unfortunate predicament. On April 18, 2023, the Economic Misdemeanor Appeals court in Alexandria sentenced her to a two-year prison term and imposed a fine of 100,000 Egyptian pounds (approximately $3,200). She was charged with the accusation of filming and sharing “content contrary to family values” on the internet in exchange for financial gain.

What is the story behind TikTok and prisoners inside and outside prisons, and how has the popular app turned into a serious addiction that leads to crimes and diseases and possibly even imprisonment?

 

Prison Celebrities

The TikTok app has a history of dealing with prisons and prisoners as part of its quest for fame by attracting teenagers with strange videos, despite being pressured to remove some of them when organizations complained about specific videos promoting drug trade.

TikTok features a section of “5-star prisons” where some cells are shown as more luxurious than hotels, featuring celebrity prisoners.

However, prisoners from British prisons have been posting videos in which they appear to be living a “royal life,” with access to all forms of entertainment, including drugs and premium cigars stuffed with prohibited substances, according to The Times.

The app is filled with video clips showing prisoners with iPhones and Android phones.

In one of the videos, a prisoner proudly showcases having four iPhones in his cell, and he sarcastically presents two small phones, claiming that they “climbed the prison walls to reach him.”

On April 7, 2023, The Marshall Project identified another type of TikTok videos featuring famous prisoners, some of whom have spent 21 years behind bars, but they share details of the prison world from the inside after their release.

These clips include their adventures, problems, and the good and bad aspects of the cells from their perspective. Some of these videos have garnered 2.5 million views because there is a demand to learn about the experiences of former prisoners in different prisons.

Some of the clips provide a glimpse into the absence of law enforcement in many prisons, where some convicts describe their cells as “royal resorts.” In one video, a former prisoner is seen smoking the drug known as “Spice” (also called Zombie Drug).

Another image shows prisoners in a state close to a coma under the influence of this kind of drug substance, staggering in their cells. Other clips show inmates performing degrading tasks for their peers, seemingly to obtain drugs.

TikTok was not the only platform used by British prisoners, as some of them also shared their adventures on YouTube.

 

Harming Mental Health

In an investigation published on July 19, 2022, The Guardian affirmed that the Chinese app TikTok was the most downloaded app in the world and surpassed its American competitors, especially YouTube.

The article highlighted several risks associated with the platform, including the dissemination of misleading information and challenges that attract teenagers and may lead to death.

However, the most concerning aspect is its impact on the mental health of the younger generation.

In November 2022, Bloomberg’s Businessweek reported that one of these trends, known as the “Blackout Challenge,” was linked to the deaths of at least 15 children aged 12 or younger, as well as five children aged 13 to 14, over an 18-month period.

The Blackout Challenge encourages child users to hold their breath until they lose consciousness due to the lack of oxygen.

According to another report published by The Guardian on October 30, 2022, experts warned of the significant impact of the internet and its applications, such as TikTok, on social media users and expressed concerns about their effects on our habits and mental health.

The report mentioned an internal study conducted by Instagram in 2021, which revealed the serious effects of the photo-sharing app on the mental health of teenage users, including increased rates of eating disorders among teenage girls.

Experts noted that TikTok’s innovative features raise concerns and have an impact on the brain because the platform understands its users’ desires and interests very well.

Experts have stated that the unchecked use of social media over the past two decades has contributed to a mental health crisis among young people.

According to a survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and published by National Public Radio (NPR) on February 13, 2023, they confirmed that “teen girls are experiencing record high levels of violence, sadness, and suicide risk.”

A joint study conducted by the University of California and the University of Toledo to examine the effects of chronic and temporary exposure to social media, including TikTok, indicated that it is a readily available drug in the hands of young people.

The study demonstrated that excessive use of social media leads to actual addiction, which affects mental health.

Based on a report from the Pew Research Center released on April 7, 2021, TikTok’s immense popularity can be attributed to its significant presence among young users, positioning it for potential future expansion.

Pew’s findings indicate that approximately half of individuals between the ages of 18 and 30 in the United States are active users of the platform. This substantial user base within the younger demographic underscores TikTok’s current and prospective influence in the social media landscape.

A previous report by The Independent highlighted that TikTok is one of the social media applications facing accusations of causing children and teenagers to develop long-term usage addiction.

The report indicated that addiction stems from the obsession of young people to present their best appearance, resulting in neurological and psychological disorders such as loss of appetite, depression, and insomnia.

According to Bloomberg, on October 4, 2022, more than 70 lawsuits were filed in 2022 against social media applications, with TikTok being at the forefront. The lawsuits focused on the suffering of teenagers and young people who experienced anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and insomnia due to their addiction to these applications.

Egyptian media outlets reported on December 21, 2022, that a 10-year-old child died in his room after attempting a new TikTok challenge called the “Hanging Challenge.”

The child tied a rope around his neck and attached it to the ceiling fan. In this challenge, some young people hang themselves with a rope for a certain period to see who can endure it the longest.

 

Preventive Measures

In early March 2023, the TikTok app announced new “preventive” measures aimed at helping teenage users limit their screen time. According to Cormac Keenan, the Head of Trust and Safety at the company, TikTok users under the age of 18 will have an automatic daily screen time limit of 60 minutes.

The company stated that it settled on the default limit of 60 minutes after consulting with experts from the Digital Wellness Lab at Boston Children’s Hospital.

Users will be prompted to enter a password if they wish to continue using the app, forcing them to make a decision about extending their screen time and prompting them to consider whether they want to spend a long time without realizing it.

For users under the age of 13, there will be a daily limit of 60 minutes, and a parent or guardian can enter a password to extend their daily usage by an additional 30 minutes.

Experts have indicated that the unchecked use of social media in the past two decades has contributed to the mental health crisis among young people, with increasing rates of depression. Research has also shown that reducing screen time can lead to improved well-being among young individuals.

The West not only accuses China of posing a threat to mental health through its TikTok application and using it for surveillance, but also alleges that it promotes a different version of the app worldwide that turns children into “idiots,” while the Chinese version is different.

Le Figaro reported in December 2022 statements from a former Google employee about the differences between the Chinese and international versions of the TikTok platform, suggesting that China intends to make children worldwide “stupid” while protecting its own children.

These claims raise questions about China’s intentions to dumb down children through this soft power, as reported by the newspaper.

Tristan Harris, a former employee at Google, told the American program 60 Minutes that the Chinese version of TikTok exposes children under the age of 14 to scientific experiments that can be conducted at home, museum tours, and national or educational videos, and restricts their usage to only 40 minutes per day.

He claimed that this version of TikTok is not available to the rest of the world, while the Chinese export “the opium version” (the poor version of the app) to other countries.

Harris explained that studies aimed at discovering the profession that inspires young people in their future found that the answer in the United States was an “influencer,” while in China, it was an “astronaut.”

A study conducted by Bloomberg on March 23, 2023, states that what sets TikTok apart from other social media platforms (such as YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram) is its ability to gather all kinds of data about each user through its algorithms.

It then uses this information to display more things that interest users. Consequently, it is seen as the most advanced and unexpectedly effective platform in understanding users’ interests based on the duration they spend watching and commenting on videos.

The application can identify your device’s Internet Protocol (IP) address, as well as precise location data and the people listed in your contact list.

The report explains that this is why some people joke that TikTok’s algorithm knows you better than you know yourself.

This is what makes China’s ownership of TikTok particularly concerning in the United States, where American users spend an average of 56 minutes per day on the app, much more than they spend on Facebook or Instagram.