Having some amount of utility doesn't contradict it possibly being used for nefarious purposes by it's owners though. If I intentionally wanted to design an information warfare weapon, I'd make sure to sugarcoat it with interesting/funny/useful content to make it palatable. Just like putting the soldiers inside a giant wooden horse.
Not that I really care enough to ban TikTok, but the value demonstrated here is pretty spurious. You could swap "TikTok" with "socializing", and I'm sure these people would've had similar outcomes.
