So apparently social media giants TikTok has a thing about preventing “ugly” people from appearing on people’s feeds; a report by The Intercept cites leaked documents instructing TikTok moderators to filter out creators that are deemed to have unattractive physical traits.
The leaked documents have been translated and lists several criteria that is considered “ugly” by TikTok such as abnormal body shapes, chubby, beer bellies, too thin, ugly facial features, lack of front teeth, crooked mouth, and the list goes on.
Image credit: The Intercept
There seems to be a reason however for this rule to be set in place – the report claims that TikTok’s plan was to avoid getting these users bullied and harassed online.
The Intercept was told by TikTok spokesperson Josh Gartner that most of the guidelines listed are “either no longer in use, or in some cases appear to have never been in place”. Meanwhile, the report cites the guidelines to have been in place at least through to late last year – so the physical discrimination has been going on for some time until very recently.
Another guideline dictates the an “unsuitable environment” the videos take place in – should the backdrop in the content looks “ugly” as well, these videos would meet the same fate. The documents state that the environment should not be shabby; not limited to slums, rural fields, dilapidated housing and more. Meanwhile there should be no “slummy” characters appearing in the background either – what in the world does slummy even mean?
This is some kind of dystopian BS we’re seeing here – even if there’s an off-chance that the intentions were to prevent cyber bullying, this surely isn’t the way to go about it. Content creation should be for everyone, and views should not be artificially suppressed simply because the creators don’t meet certain beauty standards.