TikTok is sharing videos about serial killers to its young users while encouraging them to buy guns and body armor, a recent investigation has revealed.
In an eye-opening report conceived by online publication RawStory, investigators created an account for a fictional 13-year-old to browse the contents of the video-sharing app, which provides an endless stream of user-uploaded videos tailored to a user's interests.
However, after a few hours of surfing the social-networking site, the de facto youth was bombarded with a surge of disturbing content.
Within twelve hours of opening the account, RawStory's recommended content quickly devolved from innocent videos dealing with law enforcement to clips promoting firearms, and body armor and rifle mounts that improve the accuracy of weapons when fired.
What's more, the Chinese-owned app even provided links of websites to the fictitous teen where such items would be sold.
Within twelve hours of opening the account, RawStory's recommended content quickly devolved from innocent videos dealing with law enforcement to clips promoting firearms, and body armor and rifle mounts that improve the accuracy of weapons when fired
The Chinese-owned app even provided links of websites to the fictitous teen where such items would be sold
RawStory's simulated 13-year-old, for instance, initially dwelled on videos of police, servicemembers and hunting. However, within two hours of the account's creation, TikTok shelled the manufactured user with an assortment of off-color hunting videos
The app then suggested a slew of clips about serial killers to the imaginary adolescent, with one recommended account detailing the graphic murder of 14-year-old Konerak Sinthasomphone at the hands of notorious necrophiliac and sex offender Jeffrey Dahmer.
After the initial half-day period, the content generated by the app grew even more concerning, suggesting videos where young users uploaded and detailed their failed suicide attempts - with one such video showing a young girl in what appeared to be a hospital after the fact.
TikTok, owned by Beijing-based internet technology company ByteDance, is an increasingly popular platform that provides a stream of user-uploaded videos to viewers - who in large part are US teens
'Protecting minors is vitally important,' a spokeswoman for TikTok urged users, critics and concerned family members last month, after a Wall Street Journal report revealed the social media app served drug and bondage videos to teenage accounts.
When confronted with the Journal's report, the spokesperson said that the paper's investigation 'in no way represents the behavior and viewing experience of a real person.'
'TikTok has taken industry-first steps to promote a safe and age-appropriate experience for teens,' she then added.
TikTok, owned by Beijing-based internet technology company ByteDance, is an increasingly popular platform that provides a stream of user-uploaded videos to viewers - who in large part are US teens.
TikTok suggested a video to the 13-year-old account that prominently featured an iron-sight Fast Mount from the weapons gear company Unity Tactical. The mount is attached to a rifle to improve the wielder's aim and accuracy while shooting
When users click on certain clips, the app responds by recommending a constant stream of additional, similar videos, tailored by TikTok's algorithm, and designed to keep users on the app.
And while it offers widely innocuous content, such as trendy memes and silly dance fads, the site can quickly send users down dark, toxic rabbit holes if they show interest in certain videos, as the probes done by RawStory and The Journal show.
What's more, the publication's in-depth exposés also seem to show that with each slew of recommended clips, the content being shown to users - which in these cases were theoretically well underage - grew more and more extreme.
Raw Story's simulated 13-year-old, for instance, initially dwelled on videos of police, servicemembers and hunting.
But within two hours of the
