> After a “small number of clicks” the researchers encountered pornographic content ranging from women flashing to penetrative sex.
I (40m) don't think I've ever seen literal flashing or literal porn on TikTok, and my algorithm does like to throw in thirst content between my usual hobby stuff.
Are they making the claim that showing porn is a normal behavior for TikTok's algorithm overall, or are they saying that this is something that specifically pervasive with child accounts?
here is the original article from globalwitness with screenshots.
https://globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/digital-threats/tikto...
I don't know why news sites don't link to the source, but that's another discussion.
If you consider "skimpy outfits" pornographic that both Facebook and X are worse than TikTok for me. I've seen a few pieces of content I had to report before but not many.
X, on the other hand, has literal advertisements for adult products on my feed and I get followed by "adult" bot accounts several times a week that when I click through to block them often shows me literal porn. Same with spam facebook friend requests.
I think it boils down to a simple fact that trying to police user-generated content is always going to be an up-hill battle and it doesn't necessarily reflect on the company itself.
> Global Witness claimed TikTok was in breach of the OSA, which requires tech companies to prevent children from encountering harmful content...
Ok, that is noble goal but I feel that the gap between "reasonable measures" and "prevent" is vast.
Heh on Facebook you don't even need any clicks. I logged in after a few years and the first video among the facebook shorts or whatever it's called was a woman removing her underwear.
Breaking News: If you leave your child on TikTok unregulated you are an idiot.
The world is hostile and full of exploitation. It is no different on the internet.
It's funny how this works when it comes to undesirable content:
The internet is full of "bad" (or at least undesirable under some circumstances) content. It's there on the interent, we kinda accept its existence.
Then we train AI on it, and we're upset if it regurgitates it, so we have to add "safety".
Meanwhile social media sends you right to it ...
On X, if you click a trending topic and scroll them down you'll see porn content quiet soon. #Indonesia trending topic.
The internet was and is for porn. Not sure why that's hard to understand. Also, men want that content and women are going to make it (and get paid)
The resolution of the "national threat" chapter of Tiktok was pretty much a defeat for the other social media giants, so I guess they'll pursue this angle now.
Up next: certain politicians explaining why they need to take over TikTok and sell shares at a bargain price to their buddies.
I'm old enough, and except for places like 4chan, and ads on torrent sites (before adblocks were a thing), I pretty much never saw porn online by accident. The closes to porn were censored boobs on social networks when someone shared some daily mail article or other mainstream media stuff.
On the other hand... There is "WikiHitler", a game where people click on a "random article" on wikipedia and try to reach the "Adolf Hitler" page in the least amount of clicks... so yeah, technically, on wikipedia, you're always a few clicks away from Hitler too, but not by accident.
I bought a new phone with tiktok built in. Ive never used it. I went on it as a guest and within 60 seconds I was watching a childs gooner content. Grim.
I firmly believe algorithmic social media will go down in history as one of the most harmful inventions in the capitalist world, on par with the massification of cigarretes or leaded gasoline, or worse. I'm not being hyperbolic.
>hardcore pawn [sic] clips
Here's a link to the wiki for actual reality television show that exists in real life, Hardcore Pawn (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardcore_Pawn). That isn't a misspelling. Welcome to the phase of the TrumpTok Takeover where We Need To Do Something To Protect The Children. I wish you luck in the Telescreen portion. Remember, if you make woke facial expressions at the camera during any of the daily loyalty oaths you will be declared Antifa and reeducated.
>After a “small number of clicks” the researchers encountered pornographic content ranging from women flashing to penetrative sex.
Where? I'm a grown ass adult who likes sex and has had a tiktok account for years now and I can't find any of this. I can find people dancing, dressed in a way that would be perfectly acceptable in public, but where are the women flashing and penetrative sex? Can anyone confirm that they've seen any of these things at all on TikTok, not to mention after a "small number of clicks"?
I know I got rid of Tiktok a while back. But never have I ever seen actual porn, or even topless women on Tiktok.
Of course, news rag cant publish the pictures/video and the accounts as proof. But we're supposed to take their word for it? Hard pass on that.
Now, I have seen advertisements that used sexism of various sorts. And this is common wherever advertising and capitalism take hold - its a quick and dirty hack to help sell garbage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_in_advertising
The conversation around tiktok is so politicized and biased to the point I just can't take such results seriously.
If this was Instagram nobody would care.
> Global Witness, a climate organisation whose remit includes investigating big tech’s impact on human rights, said it conducted two batches of tests, with one set before the implementation of child protection rules under the UK’s Online Safety Act (OSA) on 25 July and another after.
Also why the hell is a human rights / climate org doing research on tiktok?
Not just TikTok, I checked out SnapChat because my kid is the last one in his class to not have it (according to him). First movie I see 2 people falling off an e-bike, pretty painful, then someone making fun of someone with down syndrome, then some weirdly squirming middle aged women with duck faces, and then some very young ones (pretending to?) * off someone off screen while staring into the camera.
Also I denied all access but it still suggested all my sons friends? How? Oh, and it won't even start without access to cameras.
I was pretty shocked. Still, friend off mine, a teacher tells me: You can't let your kid not have SnapChat, it's very important to them.
The Chinese apparently say: Just regulate! TikTok in our country is fun, educational even with safeguards against addiction. Because they mandate it. Somehow we don't want that here? We see it as overreach? Well I'm ready for some overreach (not ChatControl overreach, but you get what I mean). We leave it all up to the parents here, and all parents say: "Well my kid can't be the only one to not have it."
Meanwhile the kids I speak to tell me they regularly have vapeshops popping up in SnapChat, some dudes sell vapes with candy flavors (outlawed here) until the cops show up.
Yeah, we also did stupid things, I know, we grew up, found pron books in the park (pretty gross in retrospect), drank alcohol as young as 15, etc. I still feel this is different. We're just handing it to them.
Edit: Idk if you ever tried SnapChat but it is TikTok, chat, weird AI filters and something called "stories" which for me features a barely dressed girl in a Sauna.