The latest reports said that TikTok App blocks people that they consider unattractive from going viral. “The Intercept” recently got some incriminating documents that claim that TikTok has an internal system that bans people who are not good-looking enough from getting views on the app.
Moderators of the app ban videos from people who are considered “overweight, ugly, disabled or poor” by sorting through profiles and blocking those “with abnormal body shapes”. This system also applies to people’s faces who are disfigured, have a lack of teeth or visible scars. The application also censors political speech in live streams.
Documents state that some users are also considered “too poor to go viral” if their background environment is “too shabby” which includes slums and dilapidated housing.
The company stated that the reason behind these measures is because “the best way to get people to sign up and stay on the app is to promote pretty people and suppress the ugly ones.”
Josh Gartner, a spokesperson for TikTok, commented that “those documents are an early attempt to prevent bullying”.
How is it even legal to discriminate based on the looks? It’s because TikTok is a Chinese-owned app, and those things are perfectly legal there. The owner of TikTok is the company called “ByteDance” who has ties to the Chinese communist party and those rules mirror those of that political group. Senators Chuck Schumer (D) and Josh Hawley (R) argued to limit the use of TikTok for Communist party personnel claiming that imposes a threat to national security.
