TikTok suppressed disabled users’ videos
By Leo Kelion
Technology desk editor
Published
3 December 2019
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Image source, Getty Images
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:
- disabled people
- people with facial disfigurements
- people with other "facial problems" such as a birthmark or squint
- Down’s syndrome
- autism
Such users were "susceptible to bullying or harassment based on their physical or mental condition", the guidelines added.
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 [...]