TikTok suggests problematic videos in 30 minutes of use – 01/26/2023 – Market

TikTok appears to be suggesting videos about eating disorders and self-injurious behavior to 13-year-olds at an accelerated rate, researchers said in December, raising new concerns about the video service’s influence on young people.

TikTok forwards a stream of short videos to users based on their interests, viewing times, and the accounts they follow. The service begins recommending content related to eating disorders and self-harmful behavior to 13-year-olds just 30 minutes after they start using the platform, and sometimes as little as three minutes, according to a report by the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a non-profit organization.

And once young users see content about body image and mental health and indicate they like it, TikTok automatically recommends related videos to them every 39 seconds, according to the researchers. To test the app, researchers created eight accounts in August, pretending to be 13-year-olds, the minimum age authorized for using the app in the United States, Great Britain, Australia and Canada.

“The paths that lead to extreme content are very innocuous,” Imran Ahmed, president of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, said in an interview. “Attention can be captured by a video that shows an attractive body, in nice clothes, and the algorithm realizes very quickly that the user is interested in body image.”

Some of the accounts created for the test received referrals from videos promoting “junkorexia,” a slang term for anorexic people who only eat junk food, and others from users talking about suicide or showing razor blades. The researchers found that many videos promote eating disorders through hashtags that use code words in an effort to avoid blocking by moderators, and that harmful videos crop up alongside more positive ones about recovery. For example, people use the hashtag #EdSheeranDisorder to identify posts about eating disorders even though they are apparently talking about the singer.

TikTok disputed the report’s conclusions.

“This activity and the resulting experience do not reflect the genuine behavior or viewing experiences of real people,” said Mahsau Cullinane, a spokesperson for TikTok. “We regularly consult with health experts, remove violations of our usage rules, and provide access to support resources for anyone who needs them.”

Cullinane added that the company’s goal was to build a service for all people, including “those who choose to share their recovery journeys or educate others about these important topics.”

The report comes at a difficult time for TikTok, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance. While TikTok continues to grow in popularity — the company says it has more than 1 billion users — some US lawmakers are threatening to ban its operation, citing national security concerns.

There are also growing concerns about the content that TikTok offers teens. A 2021 Wall Street Journal investigation found that teens received numerous referrals for dangerous weight loss videos, including “tips” on how to consume less than 300 calories a day. Meanwhile, news program “60 Minutes” recently reported that young users of Douyin, the version of TikTok that ByteDance offers in China, receive educational and patriotic content and are limited to just 40 minutes of using the app per day. .

TikTok isn’t the only social media platform facing scrutiny for its influence on young people. This year, a coroner in England ruled that Instagram and other social media platforms contributed to the 2017 suicide of Molly Russell, 14, in 2017. Last year, documents leaked by Frances Haugen, a former employee of Meta, which owns Instagram , detailed internal company research that found teenage girls were experiencing body image issues when using Instagram. Instagram has been having trouble controlling content that promotes disordered eating.

Ahmed said more oversight of TikTok and heightened awareness of parents and lawmakers, as well as transparency around the company’s algorithms, were needed. The Center for Countering Digital Hate created a parenting guide to the platform, featuring Ian Russell, Molly’s father, who runs a foundation named after his daughter.

Translated by Paulo Migliacci