Social media content may be undermining Western democracy by convincing British children that they live in a racist country that is not worth fighting for, according to Conservative MP Miriam Cates.
She told GB News: “British kids certainly spend more time on TikTok than a lot of other countries. I think the average child spends two hours a day on TikTok.
“Some American teens literally spend their entire life on TikTok, whereas the equivalent app in China is very restricted, the kind of content is very restricted, the amount of time that children can spend on it is very restricted.
“There clearly are differences in how it's being used in this country and how it's being used in China.
“I wouldn't want to comment on the intent of the owners of TikTok, but certainly if you wanted to weaken Western democracy and weaken the future of Western civilisation, then this would be a very good way of going about it.”
In a discussion with Martin Daubney, she continued: “It's generating the kind of belief in children and young people that Britain is a racist country, for example, that Britain is not worth fighting for, those kinds of things.
“But of course, in a democracy we should be talking about these things, but to raise a generation of children not believing in western civilisation and not feeling particularly positive about Western democracy is clearly damaging to our country and to the West in general.
“It's not a good thing from a political point of view but it's also not a good thing for our children and young people to be spending so much time glued to their screens, not experiencing the other things of childhood and experiencing harm.”
She added: “I would certainly like to see the situation where social media is banned for under 16s. I just don't think it's safe. I don't think any level of it is safe.
“I think it's naive to think that good parents could somehow control this content. They can’t, even if you don't give your child a phone, which is extremely difficult…even if they don't have a phone, they can still view material and other children's phones, they're still subject to the kind of behaviours that other children are copying from the internet.”
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