Videos made by disabled users were deliberately prevented from going viral on TikTok by the firm's moderators, the app has acknowledged.
The social network said the policy was introduced to reduce the amount of cyber-bullying on its platform, but added that it now recognised the approach had been flawed. The measure was exposed by the German digital rights news site Netzpolitik. Disability rights campaigners said the strategy had been "bizarre".
A leaked extract from TikTok's rulebook gave examples of what its moderators were instructed to be on the lookout for:Such users were "susceptible to bullying or harassment based on their physical or mental condition", the guidelines added.
- disabled people
- people with facial disfigurements
- people with other "facial problems" such as a birthmark or squint
- Down's syndrome
- autism
According to an unnamed TikTok source quoted by Netzpolitik, the moderators were told to limit viewership of affected users' videos to the country where they were uploaded. And in cases where the creators were judged to be particularly vulnerable, it reported that the moderators were ordered to prevent the clips from appearing in the app's main video feed once they had reached between 6,000 to 10,000 views. This video feed is auto-generated and personalised for each member. It accounts for where most people spend their time watching others' content. Netzpolitik reporter Chris Koever suggested the result was that the Chinese-owned firm had further victimised those affected "instead of policing the perpetrators".
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-50645345
The irony of this situation is that the very act of suppressing the content created by disabled users could in and of itself be construed as a form of bullying or harassment, or at the very least an attitude of treating disabled people as victims by default.
In addition to the case of the allegedly politically-motivated suppression of one of Feroza Aziz's videos that mentioned the Uighurs, it adds to the distrust I feel regarding such social media platforms, which I voluntarily exiled myself from years ago.
Some questions to ponder, that I can't fully answer myself: do such incidents make you concerned when using social media? Do social media platforms have an obligation to be neutral?