TikTok is the fastest growing social media platform, with more than one billion users. Two-thirds of U.S. teenagers use it. The average American user watches 80 minutes of TikTok videos each day. A new study by the Center for Countering Digital Hate suggests that TikTok’s algorithm promotes eating disorders and self-harm content to teenagers. The researchers made new accounts for 13-year-olds in the U.S., U.K., Australia, and Canada. They recorded any videos about body image, mental health, or eating disorders suggested by the app’s algorithm on the “For You” feed. They observed that TikTok showed teenagers body image and mental health content every 39 seconds. Self-harm and eating disorder content was shown to new TikTok accounts within minutes of scrolling the app’s “For You” feed. And the TikTok algorithm displayed three times as many harmful body image and eating disorder videos to vulnerable teens compared to standard teenagers, and 12 times as many self-harm videos to vulnerable teens.
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