TikTok seems like a fun little app where the young folk share clips of themselves doing silly stuff, but the owners of the company are some accused of doing some really dirty shit to many of their users.
Newly released documents obtained by the Intercept indicate that TikTok has provisions for its moderators that include limiting the exposure of undesirable users. This includes those they deem ugly, poor, and/or old. This goes as far as giving them the ability to outright ban those users.
The document (read here) notes that attributes such as having an “abnormal body shape,” being “chubby,” “obese,” “too thin,” “obvious facial scars,” “too many wrinkles,” or even having a congenital issue is enough to keep you from being seen or getting hit with a ban from the app.
Reading into the document also shows that moderators can deprioritize videos shot in what they consider “shabby and dilapidated” environments.
TikTok told the Intercept that the policies inside the leaked document are “either no longer in use” or were never put in place at all, and that the purpose of limiting the exposure of physically and economically undesirable users was “an early blunt attempt at preventing bullying.”
I suppose they do have a point in a very sick and twisted way. If they keep all the ugly people off the app then they won’t be bullied by the pretty ones.
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