A new study found that TikTok favors content that encourages vulnerable youth to watch videos on suicide, self-harm, and eating problems.
This report was released as the Senate discussed a possible ban on the app’s use on government-issued devices.
The research was done by the non-profit Center for Countering Digital Hate. The study’s authors fabricated TikTok profiles for fictitious American, British, Canadian, and Australian research teams.
Report: TikTok Recommends Harmful Videos
Using these made-up identities, they saw and liked videos glorifying self-harm and eating problems. After only a few minutes, researchers discovered that TikTok was suggesting videos about weight loss, self-harm, and even death.
In the movies, subjects varied from models with perfect bodies to actual razors. The fictional accounts with names predictive of an increased risk of developing an eating disorder were given access to even more hazardous materials. The phrase reduces weight was included in the name of several of the accounts.
Like being caught in a hall of distorted mirrors where you’re continuously being told you’re unattractive, not good enough, maybe you should kill yourself, said Imran Ahmed, CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate.
He said the site consistently disseminates the most hazardous messages to young people. Similarly, the non-profit organization Fairplay has criticized the Chinese-owned startup TikTok for failing to safeguard its young users from inappropriate content and for its intrusive data collecting.
As Fairplay’s executive director Josh Golin put it, all of these evils are tied to the economic model, so it doesn’t matter which social media site you use.
According to Golin, this is especially concerning for young people because of their increased exposure to cyberbullying and other forms of peer pressure.
Read more: Weight loss medicine is now viral in TikTok; Is it safe?
Senate Passes Law That Bans TikTok
The US government is concerned that TikTok could be used for espionage, while nonprofits are having problems using the app due to its algorithm.
Late on Wednesday, the Senate voted and passed a bill that would prevent the installation of the app on government-issued devices like smartphones and tablets.
ByteDance, a Chinese corporation, owns the app, which poses serious security dangers if it is used to transmit data to the Chinese government.
TikTok has told lawmakers that it is willing to have a conversation about security issues even though it has maintained that the fears were generated by false information. TikTok users allegedly shared misleading election-related videos without providing any background information, fueling widespread fears of disinformation.
A false 30-second TikTok video depicting an election worker in Washington state carrying a bag of ballots has gone viral.
The footage was then used to disseminate the false rumor that the poll worker had broken the law by closing the ballot box too soon. But fact-checkers had disproved the popular video, stating the poll worker was just trying to urge people to vote before the polls closed.
Read more: TikTok-US agreement: National Security issues order to hold the deal
