These are all claims by one guy (Tristan Harris) who's made a career out of speaking against social media. He claims that the Chinese version of TikTok is the "spinach" version and serves more wholesome science content. He doesn't say that this is because of CCP involvement, ByteDance manipulation on their own accord or because Chinese children choose this type of content. He does go on to say that as a result of this, most children express desire to be astronauts when they grow up. If this last part isn't true, why should we believe anything else he says? Even if it is true, why should we believe him? He doesn't offer any evidence.

It's a bit weird to find myself in a position of defending a social media app. There are a lot of people in the US who have a reason to be upset with its existence. I think it played a key role in the last election, because that's where Gen-Z spends their time. Similarly the execs at Google and Facebook have a reason to want it gone, but you don't see them publicly lamenting how they don't make as much ad revenue as they used to. The negative comments here on HN at least are always some version of "national security" and "think of the children".