Nationwide Geographic reveals in its most up-to-date concern that the Chinese language-owned TikTok video-sharing app is on the entrance traces selling pagan religions reminiscent of Wicca and druidism.
“Paganism is on the rise,” Nationwide Geographic notes approvingly, and TikTok “is fueling interest in this spiritual movement.”
Lately, “a resurgence of interest in Pagan practices — crystals and tarot cards, astrology, and herbal magic — has brought Paganism from the fringes back to the center of pop culture, or at least to the top of your TikTok feed,” the journal declares.
Particularly, Tiktok has been credited with serving to to popularize witchcraft via its #WitchTok hashtag, employed by a neighborhood of customers to share content material associated to witchcraft, together with spellcasting, divination, and ritual practices.
Some customers within the #WitchTok neighborhood determine as witches, whereas others are merely fascinated about exploring and studying about these practices.
In its article, Nationwide Geographic goes on to say that some 1.5 million individuals in the USA determine as pagans, up from simply 134,000 in 2001.
In line with Helen Berger, an creator and sociologist of up to date paganism and witchcraft, progress in paganism is linked to feminine empowerment, the homosexual rights motion, the local weather disaster, and a need for a extra “life-affirming religion.”
The pattern in paganism can also be tied to the environmentalist motion, since pagans view the pure world as sacred, and Earth Day is widely known as a pagan vacation, together with the winter and midsummer solstice, the article notes.
TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese language multinational web expertise firm based by Zhang Yiming in 2012 and headquartered in Beijing. In addition to TikTok, ByteDance additionally owns different fashionable apps reminiscent of Douyin (the Chinese language model of TikTok), Toutiao (a information and knowledge platform), and Xigua Video (a short-form video platform).
TikTok has been tagged by some U.S. policymakers and specialists as a possible threat to nationwide safety on account of its Chinese language possession and information privateness points. The issues stem from the truth that TikTok’s guardian firm might be compelled by the communist Chinese language authorities handy over consumer information or censor content material that’s deemed objectionable by Chinese language authorities.
In response to those issues, the U.S. authorities has taken a number of actions, together with looking for to ban using TikTok by authorities staff and army personnel and looking for to drive the sale of TikTok’s U.S. operations to an American firm.
Together with paganism, TikTok has been accused of actively selling suicide movies for youngsters as younger as 13 years outdated.
WATCH: Rep. Bob Latta Slams CEO of China’s TikTok over Harmful Traits Killing American Youngsters
Home Committee on Vitality and Commerce / YouTube
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