I’m not sure about “dumb them down”, I suspect it’s more like “subtly influence popular opinion”.

My husbands TickTock feed is full of things like “10 things Americans do that Chinese think are weird”, “10 reasons Chinese cities are in the 22nd century” etc etc.

I personally don’t think that’s propaganda - most of it is factually true and would be pushed to the front of any fair algorithm because it is engaging. But I can kinda see the concern, even though I disagree with the outcome.