TikTok now blocks search outcomes for #SkinnyTok

TikTok now not shows search outcomes for the hashtag #SkinnyTok. Critics who supported this block mentioned some movies with that label have been selling disordered consuming and different unhealthy or dangerous food 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 mentioned. “Digital instruments are marvellous when it comes to progress and freedom, however badly used they’ll shatter lives … the social networks can not escape their accountability.”

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

A block on one hashtag is simply the newest in TikTok’s piecemeal method towards content material that would encourage consuming problems. In 2020 it positioned that may “promote a unfavorable or dangerous physique picture,” reminiscent of 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 affect of watching too many repeated clips on a unfavorable matter.