Tag: needs

Sex, Drugs And TikTok: Keeping Young People Safe Needs A Mature Response
CULTURE, JOURNALISMS

Sex, Drugs And TikTok: Keeping Young People Safe Needs A Mature Response

Isabelle Volpe, UNSW and Clare Southerton, UNSW You may have read recently that TikTok allegedly “serves up” sex and drug videos to minors. Media reports have described the video-sharing platform, which is designed predominantly for young people, as an “addiction machine” that promotes harmful content. In an investigation, reporters at the Wall Street Journal created 31 bot accounts on TikTok, each programmed to interact only with particular themes of content. Many of the bots were registered as being aged 13-15, including one programmed with an interest in “drugs and drug use”, which was ultimately shown 569 videos related to drugs. The investigation sought to better understand how the app’s algorithm selects videos for users. The workings of these kinds of algorithms are an industry s...