TikTok is stopping customers looking for “skinnytok” – a hashtag which critics say directs folks in the direction of content material which “idolises excessive thinness.”
Content material related to the hashtag contains movies displaying folks’s work-out routines or what they eat in a day.
TikTok mentioned it had “blocked search outcomes for #skinnytok because it has grow to be linked to unhealthy weight reduction content material.”
Folks 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” folks.
Nevertheless, 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 tackle,” he informed BBC Information.
In response to 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 resembling 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 achieve” and “promotes disordered consuming behaviours.”
The development has brought on specific alarm in France, the place consultants have warned of how social media can push susceptible younger folks in the direction of creating consuming issues.
“The sufferers are fully indoctrinated — and my 45-minute weekly session is not any match for spending hours every single 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” because of lobbying by European politicians.
In its assertion, TikTok mentioned it repeatedly reviewed its security measures to “tackle evolving dangers”.
“We proceed to limit movies from teen accounts and supply well being consultants and data in TikTok Search,” it added.
It isn’t 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 instrument which made folks seem chubby.
