Amnesty International (AI) warned today that the video platform TikTok “is becoming an increasingly toxic and addictive space”, increasing the risk of young people accessing depressive and self-harm-related content.
“TikTok markets itself as an ‘online’ platform for entertainment, creativity and community, but it is becoming an increasingly toxic and addictive space, which can have an impact on the self-image, mental health and well-being of younger users, at the risk of causing them to fall into the traps of depressive and self-harm-related content,” warns AI in a statement.
According to AI, a non-governmental human rights organisation, children and young people “who have mental health-related content in their TikTok feed may also be enticed to watch more videos that discuss, romanticise and encourage depressive thoughts, self-harm and suicide”.
AI points out that “TikTok’s privacy-intrusive way of generating profit tracks everything the user does on the platform to collect information about their behaviour”, seeking to “predict their interests, emotional state and well-being”.
“The platform makes these predictions in order to show the user more ‘personalised’ content in their ‘For you’ feed so that they continue to browse in an addictive way – even if the content is harmful – and so that TikTok can target them with ads in order to generate more money,” the organisation warns.
Amnesty International therefore advocates more effective protection measures, particularly to prevent “at-risk users from falling into addictive usage patterns and dangerous and harmful content traps”.
