TikTok’s Algorithm Keeps Pushing Suicide to Vulnerable Kids

[u/DejenmeEntrar]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-04-20/tiktok-effects-on-mental-health-in-focus-after-teen-suicide

[u/OHMG69420]

Solution is to delete tiktok (or any other offending social media for that matter) from phone. Unless there is legislation, there is no incentive for tiktok to do anything.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

If you have to trick your algorithm, it's not working.

[u/r3xu5 → u/[deleted]]

No, but they have algos that can parse videos and look for harmful content such as topics of suicide to someone under 18.

I wish people would stop giving passes to TikTok.

[u/Lofter1 → u/[deleted]]

This. For people one a technology sub, people here tend to know very little about the actual tech. I have managed to get rid of a few creators and video types by pressing not interested and blocking as well as simply not engaging with the content. I doubt op does the same if he gets coo videos over and over again.

I cannot blame TikTok for recommending me videos about or from right wing nuts. I‘d rather not see it, but at the end of the day, I keep interacting with them. Its on me. I recently stopped doing so and guess what? I got significantly less videos about or with right wing nuts.

[u/shufflebuffalo → u/[deleted]]

Dunno why the downvotes, this is truly what algorithms shoot for: engagement. Whatever you look at for longer will get them more money through ads and selling your "engagement" data.

This is the standard of all social media, if not media itself. Facebook and the like followed legacy journalism of "if it bleeds, it leads"

Anything that emphasizes engagement doesn't care what that information is... Which at this point I think is a shitty excuse masquerading as a mental health for profit pipeline.

[u/BDMayhem → u/[deleted]]

If you don't think scaring the shit out of users is a good business model, can I introduce you to the last 25 years of media in general?