Chinese Owned TikTok Is Suppressing Content From Certain Groups Of “Undesirable” People

The Chinese app is free to download and seemingly available for anyone to upload, share, and view content. However, the app’s makers have instructed moderators to suppress posts from certain groups of people deemed unworthy of the TikTok image.

Banning “Flaws” 

TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a company headquartered in Beijing that has been probed for its supposed ties to the Chinese Communist Party. It's no surprise, then, that the makers of TikTok have encouraged censorship of political speech and content from impoverished or “unattractive” users. The Intercept, a news organization that specializes in investigative journalism, recently exposed this dark side of the popular app. 

Moderators are instructed to keep videos featuring a wide range of so-called physical flaws and “shabby” shooting venues from being promoted.

TikTok’s “For You” section serves as a discover page, highlighting videos that may interest users. Though it's unclear how content winds up in this section, a TikTok moderation document clearly reveals what content is excluded. In this document, leaked by The Intercept, moderators are instructed to keep videos featuring a wide range of so-called physical flaws (including “abnormal body shape” and “ugly facial looks”) and “shabby” or “dilapidated” shooting venues from appearing in “For You.” Their reasoning? Such clips could harm the app’s user retention rate. 

Curating Influencers 

The app has aided the rise of many influencers to celebrity status. Business Insider published a list of the 40 biggest names, many of whom are part of Gen Z (the generation that makes up a majority of the app’s 800 million users). 15-year-old Charli D’Amelio boasts the greatest number of followers, with over 44 million. She is followed by 17-year-old Loren Gray, who has over 41 million followers. TikTok operators speak directly to such “influencers” and official content creators to ensure that their uploads are within the parameters of the app’s policies. According to an inside source, the TikTok office holds regular video conferences with their stars, whose content is widely promoted. 

Silencing Political Speech 

Not only are moderators dictating which content gets boosted and which gets tucked away into the app’s unseen depths, but they are also deleting content outright. In the manner of the oppressive Chinese Communist Party, TikTok silences political speech deemed “dangerous” and “defamatory.” Users will not only have their uploads forcibly removed, but can also be banned from the app for one to three days. 

TikTok silences political speech deemed “dangerous” and “defamatory.”

Several months ago, prompted by rising suspicions that TikTok was suppressing content related to the Hong Kong protests, The Guardian reported on TikTok’s policy of censoring any videos that mention topics that shed a bad light on Beijing (such as Tiananmen Square). In November of last year, The Washington Post revealed that a 17-year-old user had been locked out of her account after posting a video calling attention to the Chinese government’s maltreatment of the Uighur population. Although TikTok denied that this action was linked to censorship of political speech, they have not been forthcoming with their users or the media about their practices and policies. 

Aside from this draconian censorship, users can also be penalized for simply criticizing TikTok or promoting one of its competitors via livestream. Such actions could result in a user being permanently banned. 

If Not TikTok, Then What?

TikTok, for some time, has monopolized the world of social media video-sharing. However, as the app is coming under increasing scrutiny, users are wondering if there is another platform to which they could turn. Enter Byte, a looping video app created and based in the United States. The app, whose slogan is “creativity first,” is a sort of spiritual sequel to Twitter’s popular app Vine. With fun new features like “Floaties” (text, photos, and gifs that users can place in their environment using augmented reality) and “Byte Beats” (seamlessly looping audio tracks created specifically for the app), Byte allows for unrestricted originality produced by the everyday user. It’s quickly becoming TikTok’s main competition (for good reason). 

Enter Byte, a looping video app created and based in the U.S., that’s quickly becoming TikTok’s main competition.

Closing Thoughts

Despite its funny, quirky, and entertaining viral videos, TikTok has a dark side that is slowly being revealed. Its suppression of political speech and groups of people that the app’s moderators deem “unworthy” or “unmarketable” should not be disregarded. Though it may not directly affect many users, the problem lies in supporting a company that imposes harsh policies negatively impacting global free speech. Its link to the authoritarian Chinese government is raising eyebrows and could lead to TikTok’s ultimate demise.