While the article is not good and tries to make a point, it is the wrong point.

TikTok is a weapon because it can be used to influence people's beliefs about current. This can be done in a very designed way, the way the CCP wants people to think about things, because the company behind TikTok cannot disobey the CCP and TikTok has very questionable / concerning data collection, ranking algorithms, and "go viral" buttons. Then can manually elevate content when you are most likely to be susceptible to it.

At least that is the fear.