Impaired Internet
TikTok's policies cannot keep up as ableist content go under the radar in a content-heavy environment.
This page contains mentions of disability, mental distress, and references to offensive content and terminology which may be triggering to some readers. If you are affected by any of the material, do not keep reading and seek assistance.
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"We believe in an inclusive community and individual expression without fear of abuse. We do not tolerate members of our community being shamed, bullied, or harassed. Abusive content or behavior can cause severe psychological distress and will be removed from our platform."
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- TikTok
In a nutshell
Alhaboby et. al. (2016, para 3) says people with disabilities already face much more bullying and harassment offline than other people. Their inability to do day-to-day activities in the same level of ease as others receive judgement and humiliation by those who don't understand. They are viewed as more vulnerable due to some facing a lack of appropriate social skills, communication, and retaining of information.
However, social media exposes a person's disability to a wider audience and draws in all kinds of reactions online, from supportive comments to ableist remarks. Therefore, harassment and bullying of disabled people is present online and social media sites need to do more to make sure every user is safe from offensive content.
"Do not post, upload, stream, or share:
Content that insults another individual, or disparages an individual on the basis of attributes such as intellect, appearance, personality traits, or hygiene."
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- TikTok
Erica, B. [@444baileys]. Context: ppl using this sound to talk about how they hate their siblings with mental disorders/ illnesses. [Video]. TikTok.
TikTok is still a very recent and contemporary app. Since 2018, its short videos range from comedy and dance to education and criticism. Its fast-paced nature and interactive layout is "further deepened by an element of uncertainty." (Anderson, 2020, para. 7) This content-saturated environment is “a feature, not a bug of the online world,” (Anderson, 2020, para. 7) and TikTok cannot keep up with the amount of offensive content uploaded to its site. A lot of it goes under the radar of the platform's policies, so many of its users are pushing for more moderation around bullying and harassment online, especially since TikTok's policy states "...abusive content or behavior can cause severe psychological distress."
In 2019, NetzPolitik.org revealed that TikTok had been hiding content by users with disabilities as well as queer and 'overweight' users. The platform claimed "...the rules were meant to protect vulnerable users" from harassment and offensive content. TikTok's moderators were told to limit the reach of users with disabilities because their "...videos were regarded as a bullying risk by default" regardless of the content.
This was a massive mistake that negatively impacted on the disabled community as the Chinese company took action on the wrong side of the issue. Users with disabilities' content shouldn't be targeted and moderated by the assumption they would be harassed, instead the ones who posted offensive content toward users with disability should be. Why should the victims be silenced from posting anything online?
Smith, S. [@lifeofapalsy]. TikTok needs to get woke. [Video]. TikTok. https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSRCd49Qp/
Dk2Wavey. [@dk_dotz]. Me watching you all wall like absolute r3tard$: [Video]. TikTok.
TikTok's policy around hateful behaviour states that "to minimize the spread of egregiously offensive terms, we remove all slurs from our platform, unless the terms are reappropriated." This includes on the basis of disability. However, users will still refer to harmful terms by censoring themselves since the platform won't pick up on it, eg. the use of 'r3t4rd' instead of 'retard' (see why this term is offensive). Even in the context of comedy, reappropriated terminology will still remain offensive to some.
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TikTok still has a far way to go, because while the platform's policy aims to remove harmful ableist content, it still lingers in other forms hidden from the moderators.
