To answer your question on evidence, when I'm looking for information on politically charged questions I often reference the Congressional Research Service whose purpose it is to take complex issues and boil them down to something digestible and generally apolitical for Congress (I know that's hard to believe, but I've read a lot of them, they are way less political than most other sources I find).

Here is the one on TikTok with references.

https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R46543

I was going to give quotes from the CRS, but there are so many.

If you want to learn about current issues just go to the home page and search with an empty search field.

https://crsreports.congress.gov

I check it daily.