The social media app is promoting videos about self-harm and eating disorders to vulnerable teens, a new report found.
TikTok’s algorithms are promoting videos about self-harm and eating disorders to vulnerable teens, according to a report published Wednesday that highlights concerns about social media and its impact onResearchers at the nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate created TikTok accounts for fictional teen personas in the U.S., United Kingdom, Canada and Australia.
“It’s like being stuck in a hall of distorted mirrors where you’re constantly being told you’re ugly, you’re not good enough, maybe you should kill yourself,” said the center’s CEO Imran Ahmed, whose organization has offices in the U.S. and U.K. “It is literally pumping the most dangerous possible messages to young people.”work by identifying topics and content of interest to a user, who is then sent more of the same as a way to maximize their time on the site.
In a statement from a company spokesperson, TikTok disputed the findings, noting that the researchers didn’t use the platform like typical users, and saying that the results were skewed as a result. The company also said a user’s account name shouldn’t affect the kind of content the user receives. Despite the platform’s efforts, researchers at the Center for Countering Digital Hate found that content about eating disorders had been viewed on TikTok billions of times. In some cases, researchers found, young TikTok users were using coded language about eating disorders in an effort to evade TikTok’s content moderation.
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Report: TikTok boosts posts about eating disorders, suicideTikTok's algorithms are promoting videos about self-harm and eating disorders to vulnerable teens, according to a report published Wednesday that highlights concerns about social media and its impact on youth mental health. Researchers at the nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate created TikTok accounts for fictional teen personas in the U.S., United Kingdom, Canada and Australia. The researchers operating the accounts then “liked” videos about self-harm and eating disorders to see how TikTok's algorithm would respond.
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