Tiktok Conceals Video For Persons With Disabilities And LGBTQ2 Community

 

 

Popular social media app TikTok has reportedly concealed videos made by people with disabilities and those in the LFBTQ2 community as an approach to trying to prevent online harassment.

According to reports from German digital rights site Netzpolitik, the popular platform ahs reportedly disabled content produced by a certain group of people from going viral or reaching a larger audience base as a measure to prevent them from bullying.

Netzpolitik also revealed an excerpt leaked from TikTok’s rulebook which disclosed the exact examples of what the moderators had been told to keep a check on.

The excerpt read that any subject which ahs chances of getting bullied or facing harassment in the future based on their mental condition must be prohibited.

Some of the specific features mentioned were facial disfigurement, autism, Down syndrome, disabled people or people with any kind of facial problems such as a birthmark, slight squint, etc.

However, the prevention measures were reportedly different for everyone. Some had their videos prevented from showing outside their home country whereas some had to remove their content from the TikTok algorithm, after receiving a certain number of views in the For You page.

Some users faced a different type of suppression in which they were listed under a special restriction list titled Auto R if they were considered to be susceptible to bullying.

Netzpolitik also revealed that a striking number on the list had a rainbow flag on their profiles or were identified as LGBTQ2. The list also had users who were simply fat and confident.

According to globalnews.com, TikTok has denied the rumors regarding such issues and confessed that previously they had implemented a temporary policy on the app as an action to stop bullying on the app.

However, that was never designed for a long term solution but was published as a method to manage the bullying trend until and unless their team and user-facing controls could keep up with the situation.

Therefore what started with a good intention has seemed to have done more loss than good. Even though they have tried to change the policy in favor of the nuanced anti-bullying policies but the damage has already been done.

TikTok did not mention the launch of the policy but as said by Netzpolitik, the moderation was in effect from late September.

Reportedly a source from TikTok knowing its content moderation told Netzpolitik that even though the company staffs had repeatedly marked flaws in the policy, the concerns were consistently dismissed and ignored by the higher authorities.

Director of education, MediaSmarts, Matthew Johnson said that TikTok’s method is the first case he had known where the action was taken by a platform itself to stop harassment that in turn eld to its targets being less able to participate.

Johnson also added that according to the digital literacy viewpoint, what started as a measure to stop harassment as in turn turned out to be a major cause that will give rise to bullying and online harassment.

He stressed on the point that people with disabilities are among the most underrepresented groups in the social media and reducing their presence on the platform will only fuel the reason as to why common physical and mental disability having people are underestimated.

TikTok is by far putting all the pressure on protecting people from harassment on the target.

TikTok and its owner, Chinese technology company Bytedance have faced several scrutinizes in recent times where users have complained about the platform allegedly removing politically sensitive content to China.

In a recent incident, a U.S teenager who was seen criticizing China for abusing and showing ill-treatment of its Uighur Muslims had one of her accounts suspended and a part of the video removed which asked for a strict apology from TikTok.

In November, the U.S lawmakers have launched a probe into Bytedance’s acquisition of another popular social media app Musical.ly stating that the Chinese company would be censoring politically sensitive content on how it should store the personal data of the users.

Johnson further said that the current law did not come from a perspective to protect people but was everything sort of patronizing. He also highlighted the fact, that such restrictions are unfair and will only pose a threat to the affected people rather than saving them from the situation.