"Research Finds TikTok Shows New Users Harmful Content Quickly"

Researchers at the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) have discovered that the popular social media app TikTok feeds harmful content to a primarily teenage audience within the first half hour of using it. The CCDH conducted the study, setting up eight new accounts, posing as 13-year-old users, and recording what videos were played in the first 30 minutes of using it. The researchers scrolled TikTok's "For You" page, which over time, caters itself to users based on how they engage with the content. The researchers found that TikTok played body image and mental health-related videos every 39 seconds. New accounts were recommended videos discussing eating disorders and self-harm "within minutes." The researchers noted that content directly addressing suicide played every 2.6 minutes, and some eating disorder videos have more than 13 billion views. The researchers pointed out that the report they created is not peer-reviewed and that eight samples is a relatively small sample size to be scientifically reliable. The researchers interacted with all videos featuring body image, mental health, and eating disorders by pausing and liking the videos. The researchers noted that four of the accounts were given generic female usernames and designated their locations as the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada. The other four accounts were given "loseweight" usernames to test if TikTok would show different content. These were considered "vulnerable" teen accounts, which CCDH opines TikTok deliberately targets with more harmful content. The researchers stated that rather than entertainment and safety, their findings reveal a toxic environment for TikTok's youngest users, intensified for its most vulnerable. The researchers noted that the "loseweight" TikTok accounts were shown three times as many harmful videos and 12 times as many self-harm videos. CCDH ends its report by calling on social media platforms like TikTok to take responsibility for the potential harm they may cause. A spokesperson from TikTok said the behavior by researchers does not accurately "reflect genuine behavior or viewing experiences of real people."

UPI News reports: "Research Finds TikTok Shows New Users Harmful Content Quickly"