The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) makes serious allegations against the popular Chinese-based portal TikTok. “Certain accounts” of young new users repeatedly received content related to eating disorders and other potentially harmful topics in the minutes after they joined the platform.

Eight accounts tested

The organization (CCDH) created two accounts each in the US, UK, Australia and Canada for supposedly 13-year-olds. One account in each country was given a female name and the other was given a similar name but with a hint in the username that suggested a desire to lose weight. The evaluators then compared what appeared on the accounts within the first 30 minutes.

The report does not distinguish between content with a positive intent and a clearer negative intent, with the CCDH arguing that in many cases it was not possible to definitively determine the intent of a video and that even those with a positive intent were always for some users could still be stressful. According to the organization, the sheer speed at which TikTok recommends content to new users is harmful.

News every 39 seconds

During testing, suicide -related , and eating disorder-related content appeared on one account within eight minutes of joining TikTok. On average, videos about mental health and body image were served every 39 seconds.

The accounts that had references to body-holed appearance in the username received three times more harmful content and twelve times more content related to self-harm and suicide. The CCDH also found an eating disorder community on TikTok that uses both coded and open hashtags to share material, with more than 13 billion views on their videos.

CCDH CEO Imran Ahmed accuses TikTok of “poisoning” younger users. “The portal fuels children's hatred of their own bodies and provides extreme evidence of self-harm and disordered, potentially fatal attitudes towards food. Parents will be angry that lawmakers are failing to protect young people from big tech billionaires, their irresponsible social media apps and increasingly aggressive algorithms.”

Source:

Press release

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