The most depressing news of the past week was not that the Chinese state may be using TikTok to steal the data of our top journalists, civil servants and MPs but that so many of them had downloaded the app in the first place. The revelation that the country is run by an elite that has voluntarily submitted itself to a cultural diet of inane viral dancing and lip-sync videos is enough to turn one into a populist of positively Trumpian fervour.
TikTok is deservedly acquiring a sinister reputation. But the greatest political threat the app poses is not to the private data of government officials but to our minds. Its frenetic algorithmic video feed represents a gear change in the accelerating inanition of our
