by Velia Alvich
Protests in schools and protests on the streets are amplified by the algorithm. The app’s spokespersons deny it: “It’s natural that people are interested in certain cases.” However, former employees say the company is unwilling to address the problem
It’s the TikTok algorithm’s fault if videos lead to riots. A BBC investigation found that: Content that promotes anti-social behavior is being pushed by the app. In some cases it can even reach 20 million views.
It would therefore be technology’s fault if some news cases became popular. It happened this summer in the UK. A “call to arms” was launched on social media to loot the shops on Oxford Street in London. And so the young people appeared in front of the shop windows, ready to respond to the call launched online, hopping from one phone to the other.
Or the protests at Rainford High School, where female students reported feeling humiliated by having the length of their skirts measured. First 60 schools joined the protest, then a hundred. The tom-tom also emanated from the Chinese social network, where the protest was filmed and then reproduced.
This is also the case in France, where the unrest following the death of young Nahel M. – killed in France this summer by a shot fired by a police officer – has found a space to spread online.
And even criminal cases are subject to this technological trap, which pushes users to create viral content but which has sometimes led to unfounded accusations against innocent people. It happened to Jack Showalter, who was falsely accused of killing four students in Idaho last January. The finger points directly at the Chinese app: the same video uploaded to Snapchat receives just over 150,000 views, but on TikTok it gets 850 million.
Whose fault is it? The app speakers raise their hand: It is “natural” that people are interested in similar cases. Not only that, the 40,000 employees responsible for content security do everything they can to block harmful content. But some former employees of the social network dispute this: the algorithm was designed to make choreography viral, but it is not sufficiently equipped to prevent antisocial behavior from becoming a real craze.
September 21, 2023 (changed September 21, 2023 | 10:35 p.m.)
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