TikTok is stopping customers trying to find “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 stated it had “blocked search outcomes for #skinnytok because it has turn into linked to unhealthy weight reduction content material.”
Individuals utilizing the hashtag will now be redirected to psychological well being assist sources as a substitute.
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 pressured 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 handle,” he informed BBC Information.
In accordance with 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 way of life recommendation.
However the organisation says, in actuality, it “glorifies thinness and vilifies weight acquire” and “promotes disordered consuming behaviours.”
The development has brought about explicit alarm in France, the place consultants have warned of how social media can push weak younger individuals in the direction of growing consuming problems.
“The sufferers are utterly indoctrinated — and my 45-minute weekly session is not 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” due to lobbying by European politicians.
In its assertion, TikTok stated it commonly reviewed its security measures to “handle evolving dangers”.
“We proceed to limit movies from teen accounts and supply well being consultants 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 software which made individuals seem obese.
