There is a comment like this any time TikTok comes up, but I find it hard to believe that (to exaggerate) everything has and will always be the same. Doesn't the fact that being on a personal phone that children have access to most of the time distinguish newer social networks (Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok) from it's predecessors. Doesn't the availability of better network connections allow for more easily addictive media have any influence? And let's not forget the ability to optimise the feed to exactly the stimuli that a user picks up on?

TikTok is different, and that has nothing to do with China or whatever other cultural/political topic. It is the amalgamation that results many years of optimising user interaction and dependence on social networks as an advertising platform. While in some aspects it is just a repackaged version of what has been there before, we shouldn't just dismiss the previous attempts as harmless, just because their dosage was less.