Tiktok promoted extreme weight-loss videos for teenage users, which experts claimed could lead to eating disorders. An investigation found this.
Investigative journalists set up a dozen fake profiles registered as 13-year-olds on the video-sharing platform, which recently became the world’s most downloaded app.
They found that within just a few weeks TikTok’s algorithm was inundating the accounts with tens of thousands of dieting posts.
Many recommended drinking only water, while others offered tips for how to consume less than 300 calories per day. Some also suggested laxatives in case of overeating.
Other posts showed emaciated girls with protruding bones, a ‘corpse bride diet’ and shamed those who were giving up on getting thin as ‘disgusting’.
Experts have previously warned how the app’s algorithm could send users down rabbit holes of narrow interest – that can lead to potentially dangerous videos.
TikTok has since said it will adjust its recommendation algorithm to avoid showing users too much of the same content – including extreme dieting – to protect their mental well-being.
An investigation found Tiktok has been promoting extreme weight-loss videos to teenage users that experts claim could lead to eating disorders
Chinese-owned firm, with more than one billion monthly users worldwide, announced the news days after it was approached by Wall Street Journal. The Wall Street Journal conducted an investigation.
TikTok replied that they continue to invest money in content removal.
According to charity Beat, an estimated 1.25 million Britons suffer from an eating disorder.
Hope Virgo, a mental health campaigner who has spoken about her eating disorders, said she has seen ‘first hand the impact of social media on young people’ from her work in schools across the UK.
She told the Daily Mail: ‘[Dieting content]This causes many people to question what their bodies are capable of and how they eat.
‘In order to create an environment where eating disorders do not thrive TikTok and other social media sites need to take responsibility and tackle these issues as a matter of urgency.’
From October through this month, more than 32,000 videos about weight loss were sent to fake profiles. They were not shown.
Chinese-owned TikTok recently became the world’s most downloaded app and its global monthly users surpassed one billion this year
Once TikTok’s algorithms determined they would rewatch the clips, it quickly began providing more, until dieting and fitness content made up more than half their feeds even without it being sought out. Many recommended fasting, and provided tips for how to lose belly fat fast.
Posts also managed to bypass the app’s monitors by slightly tweaking hashtags or text in videos – for example writing d1s0rder instead of disorder.
A TikTok spokesman said: ‘While this experiment does not reflect the experience most people have on TikTok, even one person having that experience is one too many.’
They added that ‘content that promotes, normalises, or glorifies disordered eating is prohibited’.