Read on Twitter
We're taking a break from tweeting about lingerie today to have an important conversation about TikTok.
The app's algorithm was openly built with discrimination at its core. They've said it's gotten better, but here's what we're seeing here at Adore Me.
A THREAD:
The app's algorithm was openly built with discrimination at its core. They've said it's gotten better, but here's what we're seeing here at Adore Me.
A THREAD:
First of all, as a lingerie company, we understand that our products and marketing can push the boundaries of what's allowed on social media platforms.
That said, years of working with Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest and the rest, have built in general expectations around what is acceptable. Even within our own marketing teams, we are incredibly conscious about how we present our products to a general population.
TikTok is a different story.
The app’s seeming randomness for content removal is well-known within the industry.
However, it’s been a very open secret that the algorithm itself was built with very explicit discrimination against the overweight, the "ugly," the differently abled, and even the poor. https://theintercept.com/2020/03/16/tiktok-app-moderators-users-discrimination/
The original internal memos were even leaked!
This was covered at length last year by numerous publications, yet a simple denial from TikTok (along with the fantastical idea that these attributes were factored in to prevent cyber-bullying) seemed to make the story go away.
Adore Me has regularly seen the removal of our content on TikTok that features plus-size, Black, and/or differently abled models and women of color. This is unacceptable and discriminatory, and we will not stand for it.
Just a few examples—recently, we've had this video taken down:
And this one...
...this one...
...and this one.
This last removal particularly infuriated our team—as THIS video, by contrast, was allowed to stay up.
As TikTok grows in its cultural impact—and revenue, including money it makes from creators, and brands like us—it's incredibly important to hold the platform accountable, and ask how exactly it both promotes and how it censors.
This is even more crucial given the confirmed, public documentation around how the TikTok algorithm was built to discriminate.
TikTok has made superficial moves (creating a “Creator Diversity Collective" and donating to a number of charities) but the core algorithmic problem at the very root of the platform still remains problematic and opaque. https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/progress-report-how-were-supporting-black-communities-and-promoting-diversity-and-inclusion
Even @lizzo said last March: “TikTok keeps taking down my videos with me in my bathing suits, but allows other videos with girls in bathing suits. I wonder why? TikTok... we need to talk.”
Well, we're ready to have that talk. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/mar/05/lizzo-tiktok-body-shaming-censorship-social-media
Well, we're ready to have that talk. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/mar/05/lizzo-tiktok-body-shaming-censorship-social-media
How does the TikTok algorithm currently work? How has TikTok supposedly fixed the discriminatory attributes that were directly built into it?
Adore Me's mission has always pushed to make lingerie and fashion more inclusive. We work with models of all shapes, sizes, ethnicities, and backgrounds, and we refuse to change the models we work with to satisfy the hidden demands of the TikTok algorithm.
The more these removals occur, the more we wonder if we’ll ever be able to grow on the platform—or if it'll even matter, if TikTok continues to drive fat, Black, and/or differently abled creators off the platform with its blatantly discriminatory algorithm.
It's time to have an honest, open conversation about how the fastest-growing platform that has come to define fast-moving cultural trends (Ocean Spray, anyone?) chooses who to exclude and why. /FIN
–A fed-up Adore Me Team
–A fed-up Adore Me Team
