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TikTok Search and WarSo, while TikTok brags about not having political ads on the platform, it drags users into one of the most violent,...

TikTok Search and War

So, while TikTok brags about not having political ads on the platform, it drags users into one of the most violent, controversial and complicated political conflicts of our times by suggesting to search for these topics and not providing any context or help.

If you want to read more, you can find it here: https://tiktok-audit.com/blog/2023/Israel-Hamas-War-Suggestions/

TikTok Search and WarIt seems like regardless of their interests, TikTok users are dragged into the melange of true and false information as...

TikTok Search and War

It seems like regardless of their interests, TikTok users are dragged into the melange of true and false information as well as war propaganda by TikTok.

The videos one sees after clicking on one of the suggested search strings range from disturbing violent material to Imams talking about the end of the world to people praying for Israel. Most of those videos are provided without any context or explanations and will likely be hard to understand for many German users.

TikTok Search and WarOn October 7, 2023, the day of the attack on Israel, the top 10 “You may like” suggestions were as follows:Italien...

TikTok Search and War

On October 7, 2023, the day of the attack on Israel, the top 10 “You may like” suggestions were as follows:

Italien Bus Unfall
Israel Angriff Heute
Israel Angriff Heute Live
Israel Gaza Heute
Israel Heute Live
Putin Geburtstag 2023
Israel October 2023
Murcia Spain Fire
Osnabrück Düsseldorf
Palestina Israel

Since then, search suggestions mentioning Israel, Gaza or Palestine are part of the “You may like” section on a daily basis.

TikTok Search and WarAnd even more interesting: Oftentimes, when you click on these search suggestions and are directed to the results page,...

TikTok Search and War

And even more interesting: Oftentimes, when you click on these search suggestions and are directed to the results page, you will not find any related videos.

All of this may be irritating and entertaining, but nothing to worry about.

This is a different story if search suggestions are replaced with much more violent and potentially traumatizing content. And that’s exactly what happened over the last week.

TikTok Search and WarOver the last weeks, there were many funny search suggestions, like "Kotzhügel" (Octoberfest, you know). And...

TikTok Search and War

Over the last weeks, there were many funny search suggestions, like "Kotzhügel" (Octoberfest, you know). And we found quite irritating search suggestions, which refer to strings like “so-and-so died”, suggesting the death of a celebrity, who is, in fact, alive.

Besides that the "you may like" section comes up with random topics, which were sometimes in the news days ago but don’t seem interesting to TikTok users.

TikTok Search and WarAt SNV @mrtn3000 and I research TikTok for some time now. We discovered that the Search Page has a weird section,...

TikTok Search and War

At SNV @mrtn3000 and I research TikTok for some time now. We discovered that the Search Page has a weird section, called "You may like".

While one might think this section is personalised based on former searches and other user behaviour, this seems not to be true.

Our hypothesis is that the recommender system of the Search Page is based not solely on what happens on the platform but considers external data, for instance, news headlines. And it is poorly curated!