Ripped From the Headlines –

TikTok’s Redacted Statements – that weren’t. 

In October (2024) I wrote about the exploding pagers and walkie talkies Israel got Hezbollah to buy and use. The point was that these actual current events hold fodder for thriller writers.

Let’s look at another ripped from the headlines example:  TikTok’s Redacted Statements – that were seen. Oops.

For over two years mental health professionals sounded the alarm over harmful effects on young people’s social skills, body image, personal habits like sleeping and schoolwork.  Recently attorney generals from 13 states and the District of Columbia filed suit against the company.  They allege the platform’s hyper-personalized algorithm made it addictive. 

What really happened:

In the documents TikTok was compelled to submit, large swathes were redacted, or blacked out from public view. In Kentucky’s court filing, 30 pages of the 119-page document were digitally redacted.  (There are several redaction apps.  Adobe even has the feature.)

Sylvia Goodman at Kentucky Public Radio copied and pasted a blacked-out portion in an attempt to read the hidden text. That doesn’t usually work, but it’s where professional snoops start. In Kentucky’s documents, the redactions were faulty and the stuff behind the blacked-out portions became readable. 

How you can use this in your writing and plotting:  

Was what NPR did illegal? Nope. The documents have since been sealed, but at the time they were public. Anyone could pull them and if you knew how to see through the redactions, you could look to your heart’s content. With an amateur sleuth, without access to fancy equipment, a low or no-tech solution isn’t just fun, it’s a necessity. 

Next, there’s something very David and Goliath about our protagonists going up against a large corporation and winning, using only her wits. TikTok is a multi-billion-dollar company. A great way to level up on conflict. 

The stakes should be high. No one wants to read about a small problem. Most of us write about murder, which rips the fabric of society.  TikTok’s own research states that “compulsive usage correlates with a slew of negative mental health effects like loss of analytical skills, memory formation, contextual thinking, conversational depth, empathy, and increased anxiety,” according to the suit. How’s that for high stakes?  And remember, they have 170 million users – in the US.

Our protagonist is on her way to learning the truth when she catches a suspect in the first lie, or half-truth. Here’s an example in our case:  TikTok determined the precise amount of viewing it took to form a habit. It was 260 videos.  No one would watch that many, right?  Good. Teens are safe. Well, the redacted portion showed that you could watch that many in as little at 35 minutes!  Here’s another example- The redacted sections of internal documents show that TikTok wanted to “improving public trust” rather than reduce the time teens spent on the app. Not only did they know their app was addictive, but it was also designed to be!  

I think these ripped-from-the-headlines accounts have layers that we can use to make our books more interesting and truly current.  Do you agree?