New parent group offers antidote to TikTok 'poison'

TikTok banned?

Anyone with children will likely greet the news with a yawn.

Forget that the law President Biden recently passed doesn't instantly "ban" the hugely popular app. (Instead, it threatens a ban if Chinese parent company ByteDance doesn't sell off its American subsidiary within nine to twelve months — court challenges could extend that deadline by years.)

It's not that parents don't understand the danger of China using TikTok data to compromise national security, it's that we've been warding off attacks by "foreign" agents for years.

Big Tech wants our kids, and it's getting them at younger and younger ages. A recent U.K. study suggests that 30% of five- to seven-year-olds use TikTok.

While moms and dads are free to be as draconian as they like cutting off access to the app, they still face hurdles. Some parents may not understand the extent to which TikTok is undermining their authority; even once they do, they may lack the technological know-how to discard the app while still allowing for some screen use.

That's something Virginia-based American Parents Coalition aims to remedy. According to APC Executive Director Alleigh Marré, the TikTok problem requires a "two-pronged approach."

"We're supportive of the legislation, but we also recognize that ... you can't legislate parenting," Marré tells Align.

Instead, the organization's recently launched TikTok Is Poison campaign offers parents a comprehensive education in how the app hurts children, while providing step-by-step guides to blocking the TikTok on various devices.

American Parents Coalition

Essential to reaching parents is a certain neutrality; APC eschews judgment and shaming in favor of letting the facts speak for themselves. As a mother to three young children herself, Marré sympathizes with parents who may have gotten caught by surprise.

"Nothing pisses me off more than having someone come after me for how I parent," says Marré. "We have to be able to speak to people with some compassion and humanity."

This includes acknowledging how radically social media has changed in a short time. "[Older] parents were assessing the risks of social media through the lens of Facebook and Instagram," says Marré. "[Those apps] have their own issues, but TikTok is a unique threat [that adds] a completely different set of information" to evaluating the effect of social media on children.

TikTok is just one part of APC's overall mission to defend and restore parental authority from government and medical overreach. A crisis communications specialist who's worked for the U.S. Air Force as well as the Trump administration, Marré founded K-12 advocacy group Free to Learn in 2021 in response to the incursion of gender ideology and critical race theory into public school curricula.

Free to Learn has achieved substantial grassroots victories, most famously in Loudon County, Virginia, which voted out its entire school board last year. While Free to Learn continues to operate, the need to take the fight nationwide led Marré to form APC last month.

TikTok was the ideal issue to launch with, says Marré.

"There's something for everybody to hate [about TikTok]," she says. "And so it really presented a unique opportunity ... to really rally the troops ... and build that broad coalition."

Broad is key. The way Marré sees it, there's nothing partisan about parents wanting to have a say in their children's education and medical treatment. Effective communication goes a long way toward winning over potential allies.

To illustrate this, Marré relays an anecdote about a left-leaning friend of hers ("very much on the complete opposite end of the political spectrum") who is adamantly opposed to red dye in foods. When the friend's child was given red-dye-containing Tylenol at school without parental approval, the friend "lost her mind."

"And I don't blame her," continues Marré. "Nobody should be giving your kid anything without talking to you about it."

Marré used the moment to help her friend understand "conservative" objections to teachers and other staff broaching the subject of "gender-affirming care" behind parents' backs.

"I said to her, 'Look, this is exactly what you're talking about.' ... And it doesn't matter what it is ... that's your kid at the end of the day. And she kind of cocked her head and looked at me and said, 'I've never thought about it like that.'"