TikTok has been doing well around the world and even more so in Kenya. There are around 1 Million active, which is a big deal for TikTok. Unfortunately, they’ve been bombarded with some serious allegations.

TikTok Excludes Users Based On Physical Appearance

In an exclusive report by The Intercept, the news agency detailed how TikTok is ‘racist’. According to them, TikTok removes all kinds of videos that show too ugly faces, poor people, or even disabled persons. The platform also allegedly bans users that upload content with political views as they deemed it as destroying the ‘national honour.’

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A spokesperson confirmed to The Intercept that the guidelines mentioned in the internal documents were an attempt at “preventing bullying”. That they were no longer actively being used.

TikTok reportedly asked moderators to shadow-ban content based on specific criteria. This included everything from “obese” people to “too thin”. One of the reasons for this says,

“…if the character’s appearance or the shooting environment is not good, the video will be much less attractive, not worth to be recommended to new users.”

Other Controversies

Kenyan celebrities and influencers on platforms such as TikTok and YouTube face these kinds of issues every day and all we can do is try and refrain from entertaining body shaming.

Besides, TikTok also had another set of guidelines for moderators handling live streams. Public broadcasts that hamper with “national honour and interests” were supposed to be banned by the moderators.

Back in April last year, the Indian government had banned TikTok in the country, barring new users from downloading the app on Android or iOS app stores. At the time, the government authorities had blamed the app for encouraging pornography. The ban was later lifted by the Madras High Court.

TikTok has earlier faced allegations for censoring content multiple times, especially posts from users with disabilities. The Chinese TikTok owner ByteDance runs a number of popular websites and social apps.

Internet is the biggest platform where body shamers thrive striking their poor victims while hiding behind their screens. Celebrities all over the world are the biggest victims of the mean, arrogant, insensitive perpetrators of body shaming.