Asian Tech Press (Sep 10) -- TikTok, the most popular non-gaming app worldwide, is using its algorithm to push content related to drug peddling and pornographic sites to underage users, quickly dropping them into a bottomless pit of adult videos, according to an exclusive investigation by The Wall Street Journal.
The Wall Street Journal reporter registered dozens of TikTok accounts with users aged 13 to 15 and found that these accounts could surf the entertainment platform's For You video streams at will, with no rating restrictions.
It was further discovered that TikTok was pushing videos filled with pornography and drug-related content to these users.
For example, TikTok pushed at least 569 videos related to drug use, involving cocaine and methamphetamine addiction, as well as promotional videos selling drugs and paraphernalia online, to an account registered to a 13-year-old. Hundreds of similar videos were pushed to other accounts of minors.
In addition, TikTok pushes paid porn ads to underage users. One minor's account, for example, received more than 100 promotional videos from paid porn sites and sex stores, as well as thousands of pieces of content labeled "for adults only".
In the U.S., when uploading a video, one needs to choose what demographic their video is intended for, and some uploaders have been pushed to minors by TikTok even though they chose "adults only".
The Wall Street Journal estimates that at least 2,800 videos marked as adult-only were pushed to the accounts of minors they created.
TikTok quickly removed the videos after they were exposed, and a spokesperson for TikTok said no algorithm is accurate in regulating content.
The Wall Street Journal had previously exposed that TikTok only needed the length of time a user watched a video to figure out that user's preferences and thus push relevant content to them.
Guillaume Chaslot, a former YouTube engineer, told The Journal, "All the problems we've already seen on YouTube stem from algorithms that target user engagement levels, and TikTok has the exact same problem, but in a worse way."
Of TikTok's roughly 100 million active users each month, teens are the largest group. According to the company, minors made up more than a quarter of the app's users in 2020.
TikTok has thus become the most important social platform for influencing American teenagers. But its "brutal" growth has raised eyebrows in the U.S. The Wall Street Journal has previously reported that TikTok has for some time pushed videos of eating disorders and glorified alcohol, and that teens are prone to follow suit.
