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Tik Tok Trouble

Equality and Community Guidelines

By Alex ArbiosPublished 3 years ago 5 min read
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Oh Tik Tok, what have you done?

Tik Tok is one of the social media platforms to have been severely bolstered by the Covid-19 pandemic. The video format is very short (the longest video is 60 seconds) and means that almost anyone can make a video with the app itself. The ease of creating videos and following other creators has made it a fan favorite for people to make their online fortune.

Viral challenges, stitching videos together and even duetting with other creators allows the same content to be reused and spread to the far reaches of the internet. Even sounds can be reused.

However a cloud soon appeared on the horizon, followed by a storm.

Tik Tok has community guidelines that are enacted specifically to safeguard the users. Videos that depict violence, encourage hate or discrimination, depict drug use or are of an offensive nature are often taken down.

Where the guidelines fail though, is in the spirit of the protection they are created for. As an example a woman was banned for a video. She appealed and was denied. On another account, she related her story. She had posted a video of her opening a jar of CBD (cannabis) and doing a little dance. That was it.

She later went on to complain that there are hundreds of videos of other users actually using the drug on camera. The difference was that the other videos featured white users and the banned woman is black.

Now, the actual guidelines allow for some loopholes. Smoking cigarettes is fine (God knows why) and the other videos did not specifically state they were smoking CBD. The banned woman's video was likely taken down because her video specifically stated she was opening CBD.

In my opinion, there is no excuse for the discrepancy happening. Any SUSPECTED drug USE should be taken down, including smoking. Opening a product should not be taken down.

What we do see is that transgender, gay and black videos are taken down at a much higher rate than other videos. There are videos of post operation transgender men (going from female to male) that show off their chest that are taken down. We see that hate against the LGBTQ+ community and racist videos are allowed to endure, but responses to these videos are taken down in the name of anti-bullying.

If Tik Tok is so against hate, why is there so much going around? Part of it is the internet effect. People face no repercussions of their actions when they are not face to face, hence they will often say or post things they normally would not if the person was right there.

The other part of it is that they are turning a blind eye to accounts that have a certain number of followers.

Today my wife stumbled across a video that was so hurtful, painful and awful in spirit that I cried. We reported the video. Several hours later, the video still played. My wife was angry and posted a video degrading the creator. Her video was taken down. She went onto a live broadcast by the creator and asked him why he could create such a video as he spouted hate for women, other races and even America (he is British).

The video depicted a background of the twin towers with the writing "People walking around the twin towers September 11th 2001". A boy walked out and the song "It's raining men" begins to play as he ducks and pretends that something is falling on him.

The video is disgusting, hurtful, immature and vile.

As of this writing the video is still up and has been for 4 days. No matter that the creator was 4 years old when the terror attacks on 9/11 happened and no matter that he is British. The respect for the 2,977 people that died that day should keep such a video off of the internet.

What is worse is that his video does not violate the community guidelines. The guidelines state that anything satirical can be exempt from the removal of the video. Since it satirizes a terrorist attack, it should be taken down. I reported the video and took a different tack. I reminded Tik tok that these were actual people who took their own lives by jumping out of those buildings. Since they take a firmer stance against glorifying or encouraging suicide, hopefully they will take notice.

It seems that Tik Tok has two sets of guidelines. One that is public and then the actual one that they enforce. There is a call on the app to reveal these hidden guidelines, but it has been unsuccessful.

There are calls to leave the app, but it has also been unsuccessful. The formatting of the app still makes it too attractive for people who are popular on there to leave it.

What needs to happen is that the spirit of the guidelines need to be enforced and not just the letter. Since Tik Tok uses AI algorithms to do most of it's work, this is almost impossible. Since thousands of videos are uploaded every hour it makes it an impossible task to screen every one with a real person.

What needs to happen is that staff need to review videos that have been flagged by numerous users. I am not talking one or two, but hundreds or more. If hundreds of people are so disgusted by a video to call for it to be taken down, there is probably a good reason to do so.

As of yet there has been little to no comment or press from Tik Tok that details any plans on updates to their policies or to change the way that videos are regulated. I recommend people concerned with the stance that the app is taking to contact them with their concerns. I have.

As of the end of this writing, the video glorifying a terror attack and the murder of thousands is still up and a video opening up a jar of happy and dancing is still down. We need to take a deep look at ourselves and decide whether this is something we as people will stand for. Something needs to change and it is up to us to do so.

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