TikTok Addresses Blocking Bios With ‘Black Lives Matter,’ Allowing ‘Pro-White’
Image via nikkimeel / Shutterstock.com
TikTok has found itself embroiled in a new scandal surrounding the Black Lives Matter movement.
Users have said the social media platform has apparently been blocking creators from being able to use words and phrases with the words “Black” and “Black Lives Matter” in their bios, flagging them as “inappropriate content.”
According to The Hill, Ziggi Tyler, a user on the TikTok Creator Marketplace, discovered the phrase had been disallowed when he attempted to update his bio last week. He has since posted several videos of his findings, which show the phrases “Black people,” “Black success,” “Pro-Black,” and “I am a Black man” being flagged as inappropriate.
Notably, when Tyler tried using the phrases “Pro-White” and “Supporting White Supremacy,” he was allowed to update his bio without receiving an error.
TikTok’s Creator Marketplace has been rolled out for beta testing, aiming to help connect brands with influencers on the platform. Tyler told Forbes that he wanted to highlight his heritage so as to attract brands focused on diverse talent or racial justice campaigns.
The video-sharing app has since responded, saying Tyler’s experience was due to a flaw within the platform’s safeguards, which had been implemented to filter out hate speech.
“Our TikTok Creator Marketplace protections, which flag phrases typically associated with hate speech, were erroneously set to flag phrases with respect to word order,” a spokesperson told The Hill.
“To be clear, Black Lives Matter does not violate our policies and current has over 27 billion views on our platform,” TikTok said.
@ziggityler #greenscreenvideo I’m going live in 30 minutes to answer questions. Y’all need to get this message out. Please. #fypシ #fyp #wrong #justice
♬ original sound - Ziggi Tyler
[via The Hill, cover image via nikkimeel / Shutterstock.com]
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