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Devious licks
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As a newer platform, TikTok also had a chance to learn from the mistakes of its
predecessors. It has proposed the creation of a “global coalition” of social platforms
to protect users better from harmful content. The fyp makes people internet-
famous very quickly—and makes them targets for harassment. To address this,
TikTok deleted millions of accounts belonging to users under the age of 13, and
limited the use of its more public features from its youngest profiles. It also claims
that less than 1% of videos uploaded in the first quarter of 2021 violated its terms of
service—and those that did were removed within 24 hours. All this, in theory, ought
to mean TikTok is healthier than other social media apps.
The reality is different. Last year the Intercept, a news site, published Chinese
moderation documents, revealing a preference to filter out users with “ugly facial
looks”, “beer belly” and content that risked “endangering…national honour and
interests”. Teenage girls have been targeted with adverts about intermittent fasting.
And reports by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (isd), a think-tank, have found
that videos peddling harmful covid-19 vaccine misinformation and white-
supremacist content accumulated millions of views before they were taken down
by the company. Some of these exploited TikTok’s features, it says, such as trending
songs, to extend their reach. The isd found the firm’s application of its policies to
be “lacking in accuracy, consistency and transparency”.
Ms Haugen’s leaks about Instagram have put a spotlight on the platform’s role in
perpetuating negative thoughts about body image among teenage girls. A similar
culture flourishes on TikTok, too. There are currently 8.8bn total views on videos
tagged #whatIeatinaday, a viral trend where mostly young girls document their food
diaries, some of which include under-eating. Learning from Facebook’s mistakes,
TikTok announced that it would include safety announcements on these videos and
d di h li b h i di
do more to direct users to support resources. Yet the lines between what is a direct
consequence of social media and what is symptomatic of wider cultural pressures
about body shapes are blurred.
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Tumblr, a blogging platform, was polluted with content promoting eating disorders
and self-harm over a decade ago, prompting the site to censor accounts that were
endorsing harmful behaviour. Internet users are wise to moderators, though.
Misspellings of hashtags are used on TikTok to bypass censored words. Last month
TikTok censored videos tagged “devious licks”—a viral challenge which saw
teenagers vandalising or stealing school property—from its search bar. Yet
misspellings of the phrase are still accessible and are even suggested by the
platform. Similarly, misspelt eating-disorder tags are easily discoverable and the
videos tagged under them have thousands of views. One such post, live for a week at
time of writing, promotes eating fewer than 500 calories a day.
Most TikToks are innocuous. But like its predecessors, the app has not yet
effectively addressed problems that hide in plain sight. If an under-age user wants
to create an account, no community guidelines can stop them from lying about
their age. If someone wants to view harmful content, they will seek it out. And the
features that make TikTok so successful also make it risky: the more a user engages
with certain tags, the more the fyp will serve similar content. Much like Facebook’s
platforms, in other words. 7
This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline "Devious licks"