TikTok is boosting videos about destructive behaviors like eating disorders and self-harm, researchers from the Center for Countering Digital Hate said. In a paper titled “Deadly by Design”, they discuss possible mental health risks behind the use of a popular social network.
Researchers created accounts, ostensibly of teens from the US, Canada, Australia and Great Britain, and intentionally “liked” videos about self-harm and eating disorders to see how the algorithms would respond. Within several minutes TikTok was recommending content about eating disorders and self-harm, including pictures of razor blades, pictures of models and idealized body types. Also they created accounts with names indicating potential psychological vulnerability – for instance, they used “lose weight” in the name and account was immediately fed with even more harmful content.
“It’s like being stuck in a hall of distorted mirrors where you’re constantly being told you’re ugly, you’re not good enough, maybe you should kill yourself,” claims Imran Ahmed, CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate
TikTok disputed these findings, claiming that the results of the study are skewed since the researchers didn`t use the platform as ordinary users. The company's representatives noted that the platform prohibits videos that encourage eating disorders and self-harm. Users in the US who search for such content receive a recommendation to visit mental health care resources.
However, despite these efforts, the researchers found out that the content about eating disorders was viewed on TikTok billions of times, and sometimes users were implementing coded language to evade social platform rules.