Blacks Targeted On TikTok

 I was talking to an African-American friend today (who is also very much an American, by the way) who told me his TikTok account has been hampered by bots who target his messages that use words like 'white' as violating TikTok rules and it's taking just too much time to fight this.  

I don't use TikTok - I have enough online distractions so I've limited myself - so I wasn't aware of this issue.  But it seems to be longstanding and I'm guessing it's a well organized campaign - like the CRT nonsense - to suppress black voices.  From the people who use terms like 'cancel culture' to accuse others of doing what they themselves are actively doing.  

From a  July 2021 NBC piece:

"Tyler tried a number of phrases, including ones declaring his support for “Black Lives Matter,” “black people,” “black voices” and “black success,” and simply stating “I am a black man” — all of which would immediately trigger a pop-up message prompting him to “remove any inappropriate content.”

But putting “supporting white supremacy” or "supporting white success” in his bio did not prompt the same inappropriate content message. Neither did 'I am a neo-Nazi.'”

It says TikTok apologized, but it's clearly an ongoing problem for my friend.  

Here's a TIME article almost exactly one year before this article on the same issue, just to show its ongoing.   

From a January 2022 article at Insider, we can see the source of the problem my friend was reporting: 

"TikTok told Insider that all of the content cited in the Media Matters study was removed from the platform for violating its hateful behavior policy. Additionally, the company outlined anti-abuse efforts that it has built into its product, including its addition of new controls that allow users to delete or report multiple comments at once and block accounts in bulk."

My friend was reporting what he called bot accounts that would report comments with the word "white" as violations and TikTok would remove them.    Here's a message he got from someone who reported him to TikTok and got things taken down.   

This is, presumably, a white guy telling a black guy he's being racist for talking about white racism.

I'd note that for TikTok content creators with tens of thousands of followers, their income stream is  cut way back when their content is blocked.  

From a December 2021 NYTimes article specifically on the TikTok algorithm :

"the app is shockingly good at reading your preferences and steering you to one of its many “sides,” whether you’re interested in socialism or Excel tips or sex, conservative politics or a specific celebrity. It’s astonishingly good at revealing people’s desires even to themselves — “The TikTok Algorithm Knew My Sexuality Better Than I Did,” reads one in a series of headlines about people marveling at the app’s X-ray of their inner lives."

This article focuses on how the algorithm addicts users and the information it collects on users as the paragraph above indicates.  This leads to concerns about national security because of TikTok's Chinese origin.  It doesn't discuss how the algorithm determines inappropriate content.  

So, this is just a heads up for people like me who only see TikTok videos when they are reposted in other social media.  African-Americans appear to be targeted and their messages are getting censored.  My friend's issues were about using words like 'white' and having people complain to TikTok and getting things blocked.