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Tbc I understand the sentiment here, but it's not a very well thought out take. Plenty of advertising revenue is being generated by teens' presence on tiktok. They are being exploited monetarily by an extremely hostile and repressive foreign power.
I get that there are nuances to this but it's not "oh look the teens' one free place to just be is being taken away!" It's not free in any way.
Like yeah, we should be building community infrastructure to allow for teens and humans in general to have meaningful engagement with each other. In no way is any social media platform a solution for that deficit and it's dumb to pretend it is.
IMO it's pretty sad for anyone to think that using a social media app is equivalent to hanging out with friends. You're filtering your entire reality through a corporate controlled micro-computer basically.
It's also a myth that teens don't have anywhere to hang out. They could just go out and do it if they wanted to, people most likely won't give a fuck if they see some kids hanging around somewhere. There are parks, libraries, malls, streets, alleys, underpasses, etc. (Adjusts the onion on my belt) .... Back in my day we just went out and walked or biked or skated somewhere and did random bullshit wherever.