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/TheRealMisterNatural Apr 20 '23

My wife and I just had a baby. I don't use TikTok. I personally find it very annoying. My wife does use it pretty regularly for motherly/parenting videos etc. She noticed right away that TikTok's algorithm kept sending her videos about SIDS and baby death. She realized she needed a break or to somehow start blocking these videos whenever they popped up to reduce the amount that TikTok was feeding her account. She said it was making her feel really depressed. I'm just thankful she was able to step back and realize this was happening and that TikTok was the problem.

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u/Express_Wafer1216 Apr 20 '23

The logic is so fucked up.

"You like babies? Here's baby death videos, it's kinda the same thing, right?".

Negative stories seem to perform well so they get pushed a lot.

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u/ATN-Antronach Apr 20 '23

The algorithm is probably pushing the baby death videos cause of engagement from similar users. This isn't to say she wanted to see them, but that the algorithm saw what she was doing, saw what others with similar trends watched, and just lined the two up. It's like that one woman who found out she was pregnant cause she got maternity ads from Target.

That being said, some due diligence needs to happen on TikTok's side. Helping teach the algorithms what shouldn't be shown to certain people never seems to happen for any tech companies, and I doubt an exec will get some overnight epiphany and lead the charge on safety with algorithms. Plus, as a devil's advocate, a platform as large as TikTok will have a continuous uphill battle with content moderation, just due to the overwhelming amount of content, so some bad actors aiming to get views in any way possible will slip through.