Honestly this just feels like pearl-clutching dressed up as safety policy. Adults have been doing dangerous things for entertainment since gladiators — a TikTok ban isn't going to change human nature, it'll just push it somewhere less regulated.
Once you let platforms decide what 'too risky' means, that door swings wide open and suddenly skateboarding videos are gone too. Consent should be the line, full stop.
The data just doesn't support a blanket ban — most injuries from copycat behavior involve minors replicating content without proper training, which is already addressable through age-gating and warnings rather than outright removal.
I've been doing parkour for 12 years and posting it online — that content is what built my entire community and career. Banning it doesn't protect me, it just erases people like me from public life.
If two consenting adults want to film themselves doing crazy jumps off a cliff, that's literally none of the government's or platform's business. We don't ban extreme sports from TV, so why is YouTube different?
Honestly the consent argument is a red herring, because social media's entire business model is built on making content spread as far as possible. You can't say "well they knew the risks" when your algorithm is actively pushing their skull-fracture attempt into kids' feeds at 2am.
The data on copycat behavior is not subtle — researchers have documented it for decades with everything from suicide to dangerous challenges. Keeping this content up because the original creator "chose it" is just willful ignorance dressed up as freedom.
Personal consent doesn't obligate a platform to host the content, full stop. We don't let people broadcast Russian roulette on TV just because they signed a waiver.
My little brother spent two weeks in the hospital after copying a stunt he saw go viral. The creator "consented" to their own risk, sure, but they didn't consent on behalf of every 14-year-old watching.
Consent doesn't exist in a vacuum — when millions of teenagers watch someone jump off a building for clout, the "creator chose this" argument completely falls apart. You're not just affecting yourself, you're training an entire generation to chase dopamine through danger.