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What is Indian TikTok but a sink of localism, a den of ignorance and narrow mindedness?
Obnoxiously bad content is not exclusive to TikTok. It’s rampant on other platforms too (Paul brothers on YouTube, influencers who use people as props, Karan Johar on Netflix).
Please don’t mindlessly defend TikTok as some democratic messiah that provided a platform to the not-so-privileged to express themselves.
I downloaded TikTok around early 2019 to see what’s all the hype about. I never made an account and simply scrolled through its home feed to understand see what the algorithm would throw at me.
Crying boys, boht hard girls, a male TikTok influencer was the flavour those days.
Soon the algorithm started throwing videos that had a casteist slant. Here are some compilations of the same -
Here’s an article about how TikTok added to India’s hate speech epidemic - https://www.wired.co.uk/article/tiktok-india-hate-speech-caste
Videos of a people brandishing guns and showing off wealth were OK OK a rage too. Unfortunately one attempt resulted in this - https://www.indiatoday.in/crime/story/delhi-teen-shot-dead-as-pistol-goes-off-while-filming-tiktok-video-1501899-2019-04-14
This year, TikTok was accused of filtering out videos from ‘ugly’, poor or differently abled users - https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/mar/17/tiktok-tried-to-filter-out-videos-from-ugly-poor-or-disabled-users
I’m guessing this is one of the reasons boys crying on TikTok is no longer a thing.
I’m guessing this is one of the reasons boys crying on TikTok is no longer a thing.
I can go on and on about TikTok’s shady practices and its users’ talent of peddling low effort and often problematic material as ‘content’ and ‘self expression’.
But that’s not the point of this rant. The point is #catsoftiktok >>> #catsofinstagram
