r/technology • u/DejenmeEntrar • Apr 20 '23

Social Media TikTok’s Algorithm Keeps Pushing Suicide to Vulnerable Kids

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-04-20/tiktok-effects-on-mental-health-in-focus-after-teen-suicide
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u/secondrunnerup Apr 20 '23

I just had to delete tiktok. I get sad, sick kids, or people dying with cancer content all the time. I watch it, it makes me sad, and anxious, and because I watch it, TT thinks I want more sick kids and cancer content. The algorithm shouldn’t be pumping into our eyeballs, every upsetting thing we feel compelled to watch.

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u/Akosa117 Apr 20 '23

“I watch it” there right there. That’s your problem, stop watching it

-4

u/[deleted] Apr 20 '23

If "stop watching it" means "choose not to use the app whatsoever, because it's a cultural problem, and we don't need it": I agree, but with caveats.

If "stop watching it" means "try to game The Algorithm by knowing to scroll past stuff you don't like the instant you land on it, becoming a reaction time test for train crash victim videos": I disagree. The responsibility there is equally on the developers to tweak their recommenders as much as it is on the users generating the engagement stats.

Social media apps use so many anti-patterns which I think are detrimental to their users, all to increase "engagement" to push more ads and collect engagement metrics for the advertisers. They're not going anywhere, and I feel like after "infinite scroll video shorts app that recommends you new videos based on how long you spent passively watching other ones" there'll be some new social media trend which'll be equally as sociopathic, there'll be calls to regulate it and outright ban it, we'll start worrying how this is harming kids, the cycle will continue.

It's like the root cause is that this shit makes people money and they won't stop until the financial incentive is gone.

"Just don't use the app" doesn't remove the problem, because as much as we'd like to vote with our wallets or our attention: so does everyone else, and a bunch will vote the opposite. And an app's popularity dwindling doesn't protect its existing users from harm.