TikTok pushing ‘dangerous’ videos about depression to children
TikTok pushing ‘dangerous’ videos about depression to children
Posted by theipaper
TikTok pushing ‘dangerous’ videos about depression to children
TikTok pushing ‘dangerous’ videos about depression to children
Posted by theipaper
15 comments
Thirteen-year olds are being bombarded with “incredibly harmful” mental health content on social media including videos that experts believe could lead young teenagers to depression or suicide.
An investigation by *The i Paper* into social media content pushed to children, set up a fictional Tik Tok account for a typical 13-year old boy and found within minutes the account faced a barrage of disturbing videos questioning his mental state.
Without searching for any information about mental health issues, in the course of 45 minutes, the account was pushed a range of potentially dangerous content at a rate of once every two minutes.
Our investigation discovered:
* The account was inundated with videos about feeling depressed or lonely, including references to suicide;
* The first such clip talking about depression was shown after less than 90 seconds of him being on the app;
* Seven videos featuring depression were shown in less than 45 minutes, working out as one every six minutes;
* Aggressive ‘motivational’ videos popularised by controversial influencer Andrew Tate were also repeatedly pushed;
* Twelve “toxic” masculinity videos were shown in 45 minutes promoting the importance of hiding emotions and instead building physical strength.
The findings come as part of a wider investigation into child online safety, that also found the Instagram account of a fictional 13 year-old girl was pushed over-simplified videos about having ADHD and autism. Psychologists fear some children who watched this content would falsely believe they have these complex conditions, causing distress and anxiety.
The revelations which suggest other teen accounts could have been similarly targeted, have prompted calls from MPs and campaigners for social media companies to act urgently and strengthen the level of restrictions on children’s accounts.
Can we ban social media for under 18’s yet?
social media needs to be banned for under 18s, now.
Parents need to educate their kids when it comes to this kind of stuff, at 13 you are impressionable but also very intelligent. I think we have to be tougher with this new generation before they become zombies to the screen content
I find TikTok is the worst for group think tbh. The algorithm is so strong that you almost never see opposing views or things you don’t agree with.
Ah yes, shoot the messenger. I’m so sick of this tired old argument. Blame the people who have the AUDACITY to talk about depression – remember if you NEVER talk about it then it doesn’t happen, right?! I’M CURED!
Being able to talk about mental health is not the cause of people’s mental health problems. Watching one 30 second video does not drive someone to suicide. There are REASONS why young people are depressed, and preventing them from expressing themselves can only make it worse.
How many more times does it have to be highlighted that the CCP controlled social media platform pushes these things. The version in China surprisingly doesn’t have such content.
All part of the gameplan to destabilize the West. Nothing to see here, move along.
It doesn’t take a news article to realise that young impressionable minds can easily be affected by short form content that often lacks the nuance needed for subjects to be understood better.
TikTok didn’t all of a sudden become dangerous to young minds, it’s always was.
There’s a bunch of grown ups online convincing kids they have mental health issues. Kids shouldn’t have access to the whole world and everyone in it
This is bullshit, has anyone actually verified this?
My daughter has tiktok and we regularly monitor it. I have not come across anything like mentioned above.
Facebook was caught deliberately trying to give people depression as a social experiment. We know this because the team behind it came forward and said nah this ain’t cool no more and not what we thought we were doing originally.
Facebook didn’t receive shit for it no fine no nothing, for every scientific experiment you want to test on people has to pass an ethics board or you get into extreme shit. Apparently not Facebook.
Facebook during the Arab spring helped the Egyptian government round up all the main characters in the country they people were then taken to desert where they have yet to be found over 50 people anyway ( it is way more) but at the time it was highlighted to facebook that it was helping to kill these activists. Facebook’s reply was we comply with all law enforcement requests in all the countries we operate in. Law enforcement isn’t taking folk out the back to be shot in mass graves. Facebook later admitted it knew these folk were getting taken out.
I could probably go on.
The only reason they want tic tok so bad is because China owns it and is big and bad enough that it can tell Yankystan to go take a flying fuck when it starts its shite.
Sounds like tiktok then.
I watched that show where they took the phones off the kids for a month or something and the two presenters also.
The producers gave the presenters a new phone each and they set up TikToks as kids and within a day the algorithm was pumping them with this content. Terrifying
All kinds of social media platforms have been doing this for years. All social media should either be banned for all under 16s or parents need to step up and actually monitor what their children are watching instead of letting technology raise their kids.
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