TikTok moderators have been caught deliberately prevented disabled users video from going viral, which the firm has acknowledged. This comes after last Wednesday when TikTok apologised to a US teenager for removing a video in which she had accused China of mistreating its Uighur Muslim population
The social network claims a new policy which was introduced to reduce the amount of cyber-bullying on its platform instead caused moderators harming the stats of disabled users.
The measure was exposed by the German digital rights news site Netzpolitik.
A leaked extract from TikTok’s rulebook gave examples of what its moderators were instructed to be on the lookout for:
- disabled people
- people with facial disfigurements
- people with other “facial problems” such as a birthmark
- Down’s syndrome
- autism
Such users were “susceptible to bullying or harassment based on their physical or mental condition”, the guidelines added.
According to an unnamed TikTok source quoted by Netzpolitik, the moderators were told to limit viewership of affected users’ videos to the country where they were uploaded.
At times the the moderators even went future when the creators were judged to be particularly vulnerable, they were ordered to prevent the clips from appearing in the app’s main video feed once they had reached between 6,000 to 10,000 view
