Alex Marlow, News Editor-in-Chief at the rightwing website Breitbart.com, recently made the claim that “TikTok is Chinese mind control,” pointing to how it has captivated the “increasingly A.D.D. American mind” with its constant scrolling. Is there any truth to this claim? And is TikTok more dangerous than we realize, not just because of the mindless distraction it provides but because of its content?

Ironically, although TikTok was developed by a Chinese company and is owned by a Chinese company, it is banned in China, along with a number of other, major social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. How interesting! So, the app is good for kids in America and the world but not good for kids in China?

Still, to say that “TikTok is Chinese mind control,” as if the Chinese developers intentionally built an app that could help destroy the Western mind, could be quite a stretch.

Yet that doesn’t mean that there is not real danger with TikTok, and not simply because it exacerbates our problem with distraction. Rather, there is real danger because of some of its destructive content, appealing especially to children and young people.

To give a shocking case in point, according to a recent video by Matt Walsh, “TikTok Is Making Mental Illness Trendy.”

He noted how destructive ideas and behavior and concepts “can go from fringe to trendy to mainstream quite literally overnight.” He added, “What was unusual one moment might be ubiquitous the next, and people, especially young people, can get caught in the current and drowned before they even notice that their shoes are wet.”

He pointed to the latest TikTok fascination with what is called Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD), as a result of which large numbers of young people are wrongly diagnosing themselves with this unusual condition.

Walsh played a clip from Good Morning America, where this phenomenon was discussed with real concern, as the host noted that videos with hashtags like #Dissassociativeidentitydisorder and #Borderlinepersonalitydisorder have been viewed hundreds of millions of times. This really has become epidemic.

Walsh then explained that the young person who self-diagnoses with MPD refers to himself or herself as “the system,” with each personality within “the system” being called an “alter.” And what effect does this have on young people?

It was a concerned mother who sent me the Walsh video, wanting to tell me about the latest developments with her 18-year-old daughter, who now identifies as a male. (We’ll call the daughter Rachel to hide her identity.) She wrote,

“Do you know anything about this??? I’m literally livid. This is how it started with us. Rachel went on some social media site, convinced herself she was a system with lots of personalities, like 100. And did this exact same thing!! When I spoke to the psychiatrists about this, they had no clue what I was talking about. No one has been helpful with this. Why is no one talking about this?!?! I’m so angry right now. Part of what the issue is with Rachel, she thinks she has several alters with all different genders. Why would any doctor give her testosterone acting like this???”

So, trained psychiatrists have not heard about this destructive TikTok trend, but millions of impressionable young people are intimately familiar with it. And, here in America, where the daughter now resides, a licensed doctor was willing to give this teenager a testosterone shot to help her “transition” to male, even though her mental instability should have been visible at once.

The mother continued, “She is so wrapped up and so deep in lies. I don’t know how to bring her to truth. . . . Her roommate, also a ‘system’ won’t allow me to talk to my child. She is the gate keeper to any communication. How can a trained therapist even accept this nonsense???”

Nonsense indeed. And some of you can identify with this mother’s pain and anger and frustration.

It’s really as if a foreign entity has invaded the hearts and minds of our kids, what Jordan Peterson recently referred to as a “sociological contagion.”

Peterson also opined that opening the boundaries of “sex categories” would “fatally confuse thousands of young girls,” a claim that the New York Post found to be “unsubstantiated.” Really? Unsubstantiated?

Perhaps this Newsweek headline from October 2021 provides some of the necessary substantiation for Peterson’s claim: “Nearly 40 Percent of U.S. Gen Zs, 30 Percent of Young Christians Identify as LGBTQ, Poll Shows.”

This spike of more than 4,000 percent, from roughly 3 percent of the population to the current 40 percent, did not happen in a vacuum. Instead, this is what takes place when a society loses its boundaries, casts off traditional biblical values, and inundates its young people with a constant flood of pro-LGBTQ messages and propaganda. The latest TikTok trends provide yet another avenue for such mass deception, as kids are self-diagnosing themselves with all kinds of alleged mental disorders.

Written by John Stonestreet and Roberto Rivera

Many Christians, especially when it comes to LGBT-related issues, have bought into what might be called “the inevitability thesis.” Nearly everything in our culture has convinced them to assume that it is futile for anyone to resist their same-sex attractions. And, any attempt to help someone, especially young people, reduce their behaviors and attractions is just as futile, and probably even illegal. 

After all, many believe, legislatures have adopted and courts have upheld bans on such things. Pastors, youth pastors, Christian-school teachers, entire counseling degree programs at Christian colleges and seminaries, and plenty of parents have embraced the “inevitability thesis” when it comes to LGBT issues, and now refuse either to address these questions at all, or, if they do, they still refuse to counter the cultural consensus they assume has been settled.

A ruling last month from the 11^th Circuit court challenges the inevitability thesis. 

In 2017, the city of Boca Raton and the county of Palm Beach in Florida joined a growing list of jurisdictions that have adopted bans on “Sexual Orientation Change Efforts.” By ordinance, licensed professional counselors are prohibited from treating minors with the goal of “changing [their] sexual orientation or gender identity.” When Robert Otto and Julie Hamilton, two licensed counselors, challenged the ordinances in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, their chances of success seemed slim to none. After all, similar bans had already been challenged and upheld in the 9th and 3rd Circuit Courts. 

Judge Britt Grant of the 11th Circuit, however, sided with Otto and Hamilton. The counselors told the court that the ordinances “infringe on their constitutional right to speak freely with clients,” including those who have sought counseling because of “sincerely held religious beliefs conflicting with homosexuality.” Judge Grant found these free-speech restrictions of the ordinances to be “presumptively unconstitutional.” 

While Judge Grant acknowledged that the kind of therapy Otto and Hamilton practice to be “highly controversial,” which is why dozens of states and municipalities have banned it, the ordinances applied only “to particular speech because of the topic discussed or the idea or message expressed.” The First Amendment, Judge Grant clarified, “has no carveout for controversial speech.” Despite the government’s “legitimate authority to protect children,” speech, no matter how controversial, “cannot be suppressed solely to protect the young from ideas or images that a legislative body thinks unsuitable for them.”

 “If the [therapists’] perspective is not allowed here,” Grant concluded, “then the [government’s] perspective can be banned elsewhere.” In other words, what’s sauce for the goose could easily become sauce for the gander. Thus, speech should not be restricted merely because some people object to what is being said. 

Not only does Grant’s decision create what’s called “a conflict in the circuits,” making it all the more probable that the U.S. Supreme Court will have to consider the issue, there is an implicit lesson for anyone tempted by the inevitability thesis. After California and other jurisdictions passed laws restricting what counselors could discuss with their clients, many Christians and Christian institutions chose to conform to ideas and practices they knew to be wrong, so as not to put their licensure, accreditation, or some form of the state’s blessing, at risk. The pressure they felt was, of course, real, but they were mistaken to think there was no further legal recourse available. A similar mistake was made a couple years ago by a Christian adoption agency who had been told they had to place children with same-sex couples. A judge decided against the state in that case as well.

Of course, it’s not clear what decision a newly remade U.S. Supreme Court may return on any of these issues. That’s why the best advice in times like ours remains that given by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, advice we were all reminded of by Rod Dreher: We must not live by lies. While there may be no call for us to stand on every street corner or counter-protest every pride march, the greater challenge for every mom, dad, pastor, professor, youth pastor, or professional counselor, is never, ever to allow ourselves to say or go along with what is not true. Especially when it comes to what it means to be human.

This article was originally published at Breakpoint.org.