Amid efforts in Congress to ban TikTok, yet another dangerous challenge has been promoted on the Chinese social media app — with a video showing a woman supposedly eating a Fruit Roll-Up with the plastic wrap still on the product, a suggestion that the company behind the product is desperately trying to refute.
TikTok has been the source of controversy for a long time over the platform allowing the promotion of dangerous “challenges” — including the “blackout challenge” that tells users to choke themselves on camera, which has led to multiple deaths. Another disgusting trend was the “Coronavirus Challenge,” which involved licking random items and surfaces in public during the pandemic — with one video showing a man licking a toilet bowl in a public restroom. The “Fire Challenge,” which also trended on TikTok, involved dousing objects with flammable liquid and setting them on fire — which resulted in a 12-year-old suffering burns over 35% of his body.
TikTok CEO Shou Chew can't say how many children have died because of dangerous "challenges" on TikTok. pic.twitter.com/oZurG7yQNA
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) March 23, 2023
The latest controversial TikTok trend involves people eating Fruit Roll-Ups with the cellophane wrap still on it. The trend became so widespread that the company behind the snacks posted about it, writing — “Fruit Roll-Ups Warns TikTokers Against Eating Plastic Wrap as Part of Trend as Lawmakers Debate Banning App.”
In a response video, a Fruit Roll-Ups representative attempted to eat one of the snacks with the plastic wrap still on it and failed. The video also included a clip of one of the videos of the challenge that has gone viral. After showing that the wrapping was obviously not edible, the representative then declared: “Nope. Plastic.”
Fruit Roll-Ups legal team warns TikTok fools not to eat plastic wrapping https://t.co/5i4LTty0b7 pic.twitter.com/wOlOWGZENw
— New York Post (@nypost) March 23, 2023
Many users had already called out the woman in the original viral video, with one pointing out that she was secretly removing the plastic and repackaging the product before eating it on camera in a desperate ploy for “engagement” and for her video to go “viral.”
“I swear she’s literally just resealed it after removing the plastic,” another user wrote.
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew recently appeared before Congress, where lawmakers from both parties criticized the app for spying on Americans, promoting dangerous trends and being connected to the Chinese Communist Party.
As CNBC reported, Chew was grilled about the social media app’s “potential to harm kids through its addictive features and potentially dangerous posts, as well as whether data from U.S. users could end up in the hands of the Chinese government.”
