To think Tiktok is disturbing

[Snegle]

I reluctantly got my own Tiktok account recently and all I got recommended was video after video of child and animal cruelty from the moment I logged in. Also footage of domestic violence that was mocking a woman being punched in the face and someone winding up disabled people. It just seems like a competition in who can be the most cruel and rude. These videos have hundreds of thousands of likes. I'm really confused? I've found some of it quite upsetting and I never want to go on Tiktok again. Is this what TikTok is? What a hell hole.

Just for context I'm 30 so technically key audience for TT.

It should have asked you to choose your likes when you signed up.

Then it works by what you actively watch or "like". There is also the option to be " not interested " go to the share button and there's a "not interested " option. Apparently doing this twice for one subject matter ensures you don't see anything (for me it was Larry Stylinson theories and the horrifically disabled baby beijf hawked for money by the parents, my 18 year old told me how to get rid)

I’ve never seen anything like that on TikTok, and the algorithm didn’t take long to figure me out. Keep saying not interested to things you don’t like and interact with the things you do. My FYP is full of interesting history and geography, books, craft/arty stuff, house renovations, ‘mum’ content (of the slightly crunchy, gentle parenting variety) and van life that I aspire to. It does think I have curly hair though, which is actually quite interesting to learn!

I joined to promote a small business and yes, there's so many awful things with so many views. I would use the word disturbing too.

Once I saw this awful thing that I can't ever unsee and can't even say what it was (think something some ppl find erotic but most beyond disgusting). And the thing is when you first log in it takes you some time to realise what you're looking at and because you watched for a few secs TikTok thinks you liked it?

Also just everyone saying I've never seen anything bad sound like the viewer should take responsibility of what is on TT... The fact is horrible stuff is on there and just because you were quick enough to skip it/ hide it doesn't mean it disappears and is not having an effect on the younger generations. I'd prefer people actively reporting them than skipping quickly.

But honestly seeing a bunch of kids with balaclavas robbing McDonald's at day time while videoing themselves makes me feel a bit depressed about the future in general.

Glad you got rid OP

I have been told to consider it for my business but I rejected it.

I’ve never had anything like that?
the majority of my feed is positive but if I saw that stuff I would be upset. I don’t think under 16 should have it.

There’s a ton of vile content on every single social media platform, but as PPs have said, you’ll be served up more of the same according to the stuff you interact with.

What I’ve only just realised though (and been schooled in by my young adult kids who find my ineptitude hilarious) is that on TikTok in particular you can’t just be passive and negative (reporting inappropriate content), you have to actively ‘like’ stuff in order to manage the algorithm. I’ve never had a problem until recently - my content has always been pleasant/innocuous, but all of a sudden I started getting really nasty stuff, like animal abuse and porn. My kids tell me it’s to force you to engage and interact with the app. If you’re not telling it what you want to watch (and by extension what kind of shit they can sell you, I guess), it’ll automatically shake things up by showing ‘popular’ and/or shocking content.

My kids tell me it’s to force you to engage and interact with the app. If

that makes sense as it's all about engagement.

No-one knows why it served you that as a new user. I joined for work last year and I wasn't shown any of that. I still haven't seen anything like the videos you describe.
But I don't often randomly scroll. It's a tool for me not a lifestyle choice. My DC don't have any social media and they're clear I only use it for work purposes.

This is why it's so dangerous for kids and why many parents have ended up being convinced that it's fine because they don't get negative things in their own feeds.

All four people in a 2 parent, 2 child family could have the same app and see completely different content which never overlaps, including highly disturbing and dangerous materials. Tiktok is messed up, to be honest.

I have never seen anything like this on TikTok. Ever.
Mine is all of dogs, fashion, cooking, dancing. All sorts. But never anything violent or cruel.
I think it depends on your algorithms of what you watch. If you started searching dog videos etc - more of them would come up I imagine.

It must be disturbing to see those videos and if I did, it would really put me off going on there because that would be traumatising!

But it's never happened.

All four people in a 2 parent, 2 child family could have the same app and see completely different content which never overlaps, including highly disturbing and dangerous materials. Tiktok is messed up, to be honest.

I share an account with dd which helps to prevent this

You have to really do the work to curate your own experiences on these sorts of apps. It took me a while but my instagram and tiktok is now pretty much all black women hair + beauty creators.

Can't say I have ever noticed any on my Tik Tok Feed
I mainly get History , Vlogs from various people, fun videos etc etc

Everyone should delete tik tok. It's awful.

This isn't my experience of TikTok. I'm sure this content is out there but I've never been randomly shown it.

I tell my dc it is a data harvesting tool for the Chinese Communist Party with the goal of hastening the demise of the West. It throws up silly challenges to distract us from reality at best or perniciously spreads misinformation. Uninstall Thick Tok and find something more worthwhile to do. 🙂

Do you remember the MP who complained about porn ads being shown on normal websites?

It's like that for you

TikTok shows you what you interact with (watch, like, favourite, follow). So you see what you "like"

It learns very quickly. Mine's full of people doing dressage, charity shop finds and recipes.

Recommended videos are based on your search history and previous engagement

Also are you dramatising these videos, some view those prank videos on children as child abuse, so was this actually a domestic abuse video or are you over egging it?

Plus at 30 you are definitely not a key audience for TT

This is just not true though, my ds certainly has not been searching for children dying and was really upset that these vid keep popping up! See above, another poster has had the same thing happen.

I've found Youtube's 'Shorts' knock-off to be worse for this, but yeah, pretty much all of them have a tendancy of pushing the more controversial things first if it doesn't have other data to go on.

Some find having the individual channels they want on a computer browser easier to manage than the app.

TikTok shows you what you interact with (watch, like, favourite, follow). So you see what you "like"

But for a brand new user, or even the sporadic user or one using privacy blocks, it's not going on the individual's data with the site much - so it's worthwhile questioning how it arranges for those it doesn't have that data on. Is it based on location popularity or whole site popularity or, as others said, what it thinks gets the most engagement.

Blaming the individual for how the site sets up it's initial experience is to ignore that those initial watches are largely in the platform's hands. Having a fresh device, fresh/no account using one of these and it bringing up violence or nudity or even just extreme political as tends to happen are platform choices.

When you download TikTok, you need to spend the first hour or so teaching it what kind of content you like. If you watch a video until the end, it assumes that you like that kind of content and shows you more.

I've never seen the sort of videos that you describe. I've seen videos mocking Matt Hancock (set to It Wasn't Me by Shaggy) but my content is stuff I like: recipes, funny animals, funny kids, home improvement, clips from old tv and movies with the odd current affairs and shopping hauls.

When I downloaded TikTok it was a lot of dancing and pranks sort of thing but the goal of TT is to show people videos of what they like so my FYP is very different to my dd and ds who like other kinds of videos. The app will sometimes try and expand your interests so recently I've been getting a lot of videos of people changing hair colour at salons which is fascinating for me.

I'm just like you with the tv/movies content lol. There's a lot of international content that I keep on meaning to look out for from places like India and Korea.

This is just not true though, my ds certainly has not been searching for children dying and was really upset that these vid keep popping up! See above, another poster has had the same thing happen.

But he's been pausing on them. Allowing them to play while he brings them to show you, reports them etc which adds them to the algorithm

I've got to say that I think it's very dangerous to children. Of course it's the parent's responsibility to monitor what their children watch on the Internet, but I don't think tik too is taking enough responsibility for its content by far. Even the schools give kids warning.
That said, I know kids that are 7 years old that have free rein of it and I think that's irresponsible. Very.

An excellent example of why I hate this stuff. Targeted at children, who have no idea how it works....and actually a lot of us adults don't really know either.

Really hoping there will be more rejecting of it.