TikTok now blocks search outcomes for #SkinnyTok

TikTok not shows search outcomes for the hashtag #SkinnyTok. Critics who supported this block stated some movies with that label had been selling disordered consuming and different unhealthy or dangerous eating regimen behaviors. We have reached out to TikTok for touch upon this growth.

France’s Minister of State for Digital Affairs Clara Chappaz was one of many politicians main the towards this specific hashtag. She has been campaigning towards #SkinnyTok with each French and EU regulators since . “These movies selling excessive thinness are revolting and completely unacceptable,” Chappaz stated. “Digital instruments are marvellous by way of progress and freedom, however badly used they will shatter lives … the social networks can not escape their accountability.”

Whereas blocking search outcomes for probably dangerous hashtags is a optimistic step, it solely locations hurdles within the path of people that need to hunt down related movies. “Customers are savvy,” Cornell College professor Brooke Erin Duffy instructed The New York Instances. “They know learn how to work these platforms and learn how to evade their content material moderation programs.”

A block on one hashtag is simply the most recent in TikTok’s piecemeal method towards content material that might encourage consuming problems. In 2020 it positioned that may “promote a adverse or dangerous physique picture,” akin to fasting apps and weight reduction dietary supplements. TikTok started a with the Nationwide Consuming Dysfunction Affiliation in 2021 to supply extra sources for customers with consuming problems. Later that 12 months, it additionally launched a brand new to the For You web page in an effort to cut back the impression of watching too many repeated clips on a adverse subject.