Report Shows TikTok Promoted Anti-LGBTQ Content During Pride Month

While TikTok is increasingly popular among LGBTQ people and spent Pride Month boasting rainbow-branded campaigns, a new report shows that that the app is continuing to harm LGBTQ users behind the scenes.

A report released last week via the watchdog organization Media Matters for America found that TikTok still promotes anti-LGBTQ content on users’ “For You” pages, even though such content is banned through the app’s community guidelines. The “For You” feature is the first page users see when they open the app and is a feed of personalized content based on what the user has already interacted with on their account.

The report found that liking just a single, anti-LGBTQ video would lead TikTok to increasingly recommend more videos like it, until the user’s “For You” page “quickly became dominated by almost exclusively anti-LGBTQ content.”

The report notes that the app promoted anti-LGBTQ videos to users as it continued to promote their #ForYourPride campaign during Pride Month. They hosted a TikTok Live concert in collaboration with LA Pride, and the campaign aimed to uplight LGBTQ trailblazers who create content on the app as part of what TikTok called a “unifying, global rallying cry.”

Though Media Matters reports the app continued to circulate anti-LGBTQ videos, some explicitly promoting violence against queer and trans people. They did not include exact data on how many anti-LGBTQ videos were boosted by TikTok in June, but Media Matters says there is a profound impact from these videos.

“It is difficult to explain in words just how many videos targeting the LGBTQ community were—and continue to be—promoted by TikTok’s recommendation algorithm,” the report says.

While many folks would quickly dismiss these videos as the work of trolls and not a legitimate concern, Media Matters notes that a third of the apps users are under the age of 14, and bearing that in mind, this content could have a profound impact on young LGBTQ people who encounter it.

And it isn’t just “troll content” that’s being pushed by the app. Media Matters notes that one video TikTok recommended was a celebration of a group of LGBTQ people being arrested by Russian police that racked up 9.4 million views.

“This video was from an explicitly anti-LGBTQ account with fewer than 55,000 followers, meaning TikTok’s algorithm had picked up and widely circulated the video,” the report states. “In each case, this content was placed on our ‘For You’ page and required no additional searching.”

TikTok has been in this bind before. In fact, Media Matters reported on the same phenomenon just two months ago. TikTok had since vowed to “remove hateful, anti-LGBTQ+ content or accounts that attempt to bully or harass people on our platform” as it launched its Pride campaign.

“And, as hateful behaviors evolve, we’ll redirect searches and hashtags to our Community Guidelines to reinforce that there’s no place for hateful ideologies like #only2genders and #superstraight on our platform,” a TikTok press release reads.

However, it doesn’t appear that much has changed to make the app safer for LGBTQ users.