> this could just be the beginning of our society beginning to scrutinize these platforms.

I think politicians have scrutinized american social media and they're 100% fine with the misery they induce so long as they are personally enriched by them.

> There's a certain historic symmetry with how opium was traditionally used in China

TikTok isn't anywhere near as destructive as opium was. Hell, purely in terms of "mis/disinformation" surely facebook and twitter are many times worse than TikTok.

Surely the appropriate modern parallel is fentanyl.