It kind of makes me appreciate that there were lots of times we banned things after they crossed an arbitrary line of danger. Alcohol was fine until hard liquor was invented. Child work was expected, until factories came along.
In a way, I almost think of TikTok as a reverse Opium War. Opium was already a not uncommon vice in China until the British introduced much more potent strains. TikTok not being fundamentally different than the other tech that preceded it, just a more potent version.