TikTok is stopping customers looking for “skinnytok” – a hashtag which critics say directs individuals in the direction of content material which “idolises excessive thinness.”
Content material related to the hashtag contains movies exhibiting individuals’s work-out routines or what they eat in a day.
TikTok mentioned it had “blocked search outcomes for #skinnytok because it has grow to be linked to unhealthy weight reduction content material.”
Individuals utilizing the hashtag will now be redirected to psychological well being assist assets as an alternative.
Tom Quinn, from the consuming dysfunction charity, Beat, welcomed the transfer saying “skinnytok” and associated content material may have “devastating” impacts on “struggling” individuals.
Nonetheless, he confused there was extra to do.
“We all know that customers will fairly often discover workarounds to content material blocks and there’ll nonetheless be damaging content material which is not shared beneath the “skinnytok” umbrella, which TikTok and different social media platforms should now tackle,” he informed BBC Information.
Based on the US-based National Alliance for Eating Disorders, the skinnytok hashtag has greater than half 1,000,000 posts related to it.
It says the hashtag contains content material comparable to low-calorie recipes which on the face of it seem to advertise wholesome life-style recommendation.
However the organisation says, in actuality, it “glorifies thinness and vilifies weight achieve” and “promotes disordered consuming behaviours.”
The development has brought about explicit alarm in France, the place specialists have warned of how social media can push susceptible younger individuals in the direction of creating consuming issues.
“The sufferers are fully indoctrinated — and my 45-minute weekly session isn’t any match for spending hours each day on TikTok,” the nutritionist Carole Copti informed the AFP information company.
The blocking of the hashtag has been celebrated by France’s digital minister, who wrote on social media that “skinnytok is over” because of lobbying by European politicians.
In its assertion, TikTok mentioned it usually reviewed its security measures to “tackle evolving dangers”.
“We proceed to limit movies from teen accounts and supply well being specialists and data in TikTok Search,” it added.
It isn’t the primary time TikTok has been compelled to take motion over content material which raised physique picture considerations.
In March, it blocked so-called “chubby filters” – a viral device which made individuals seem chubby.
