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At the end of 2022, Congress passed legislation to ban TikTok from all government devices, citing data privacy concerns and potential ties between the app and the Chinese government. But this isn't the first time the incredibly popular social media platform occupied headlines. Ever since TikTok exploded worldwide in 2018, news outlets across the country\xa0have breathlessly reported on TikTok challenges, which they claim range from the bizarre (licking toilet seats) to the dangerous ("National School Shooting Day"). However, the actual reach and impact of these challenges remain mysterious\xa0\u2014 or, more often, minimal.\xa0

On the Media correspondent\xa0Micah Loewinger\xa0breaks down\xa0a short history of these TikTok panics, and looks into the failures of news outlets to judiciously report on overblown TikTok virality, as well as the cyclic paranoia that arises when we face new technology (think: comic books corrupting youth in the 1950s). He poses the question: haven't we been through this already?\xa0

Special thanks to\xa0New York City Municipal Archives\xa0for providing archival audio related to the effects of radio and comics books on children.

This segment originally\xa0aired on our May 13th, 2022 program,\xa0Seeing is Believing.