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 consists of movies exhibiting 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 help sources as a substitute.
Tom Quinn, from the consuming dysfunction charity, Beat, welcomed the transfer saying “skinnytok” and associated content material may have “devastating” impacts on “struggling” individuals.
Nonetheless, he confused 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 below the “skinnytok” umbrella, which TikTok and different social media platforms should now handle,” he instructed BBC Information.
Based on 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 consists of content material akin 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 specialists have warned of how social media can push weak younger individuals in the direction of creating consuming problems.
“The sufferers are utterly indoctrinated — and my 45-minute weekly session is not any match for spending hours daily 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 commonly reviewed its security measures to “handle 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 compelled to take motion over content material which raised physique picture issues.
In March, it blocked so-called “chubby filters” – a viral instrument which made individuals seem chubby.
