Experiences of Censorship on TikTok Across Marginalised Identities

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Ungless, Eddie L., Markl, Nina, Ross, Björn
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2024
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author Ungless, Eddie L.
Markl, Nina
Ross, Björn
author_facet Ungless, Eddie L.
Markl, Nina
Ross, Björn
contents TikTok has seen exponential growth as a platform, fuelled by the success of its proprietary recommender algorithm which serves tailored content to every user - though not without controversy. Users complain of their content being unfairly suppressed by ''the algorithm'', particularly users with marginalised identities such as LGBTQ+ users. Together with content removal, this suppression acts to censor what is shared on the platform. Journalists have revealed biases in automatic censorship, as well as human moderation. We investigate experiences of censorship on TikTok, across users marginalised by their gender, LGBTQ+ identity, disability or ethnicity. We survey 627 UK-based TikTok users and find that marginalised users often feel they are subject to censorship for content that does not violate community guidelines. We highlight many avenues for future research into censorship on TikTok, with a focus on users' folk theories, which greatly shape their experiences of the platform.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2407_14164
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Experiences of Censorship on TikTok Across Marginalised Identities
Ungless, Eddie L.
Markl, Nina
Ross, Björn
Human-Computer Interaction
TikTok has seen exponential growth as a platform, fuelled by the success of its proprietary recommender algorithm which serves tailored content to every user - though not without controversy. Users complain of their content being unfairly suppressed by ''the algorithm'', particularly users with marginalised identities such as LGBTQ+ users. Together with content removal, this suppression acts to censor what is shared on the platform. Journalists have revealed biases in automatic censorship, as well as human moderation. We investigate experiences of censorship on TikTok, across users marginalised by their gender, LGBTQ+ identity, disability or ethnicity. We survey 627 UK-based TikTok users and find that marginalised users often feel they are subject to censorship for content that does not violate community guidelines. We highlight many avenues for future research into censorship on TikTok, with a focus on users' folk theories, which greatly shape their experiences of the platform.
title Experiences of Censorship on TikTok Across Marginalised Identities
topic Human-Computer Interaction
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.14164