TikTok blocks searches for excessive thinness ‘skinnytok’ hashtag

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 displaying individuals’s work-out routines or what they eat in a day.

TikTok mentioned it had “blocked search outcomes for #skinnytok because it has change into 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 might have “devastating” impacts on “struggling” individuals.

Nonetheless, he burdened 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 underneath the “skinnytok” umbrella, which TikTok and different social media platforms should now tackle,” he instructed BBC Information.

In response to the US-based Nationwide Alliance for Consuming Issues, the skinnytok hashtag has greater than half one million posts related to it.

It says the hashtag contains content material akin 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 pattern has brought on explicit alarm in France, the place specialists have warned of how social media can push weak younger individuals in the direction of growing consuming issues.

“The sufferers are fully indoctrinated — and my 45-minute weekly session is not any match for spending hours day-after-day on TikTok,” the nutritionist Carole Copti instructed 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 frequently reviewed its security measures to “tackle evolving dangers”.

“We proceed to limit movies from teen accounts and supply well being specialists and knowledge in TikTok Search,” it added.

It’s not the primary time TikTok has been pressured 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 obese.