Experiences of Censorship on TikTok Across Marginalised Identities

TL;DR

This study explores how marginalized users on TikTok perceive and experience censorship, revealing that many feel unfairly suppressed despite not violating guidelines, highlighting biases in the platform's moderation.

Contribution

The paper provides empirical insights into censorship experiences of marginalized TikTok users and emphasizes the role of user perceptions and folk theories in shaping these experiences.

Findings

Marginalized users often feel censored unfairly.

Biases exist in TikTok's automatic and human moderation.

User perceptions significantly influence censorship experiences.

Abstract

TikTok has seen exponential growth as a platform, fuelled by the success of its proprietary recommender algorithm which serves tailored content to every user - though not without controversy. Users complain of their content being unfairly suppressed by ''the algorithm'', particularly users with marginalised identities such as LGBTQ+ users. Together with content removal, this suppression acts to censor what is shared on the platform. Journalists have revealed biases in automatic censorship, as well as human moderation. We investigate experiences of censorship on TikTok, across users marginalised by their gender, LGBTQ+ identity, disability or ethnicity. We survey 627 UK-based TikTok users and find that marginalised users often feel they are subject to censorship for content that does not violate community guidelines. We highlight many avenues for future research into censorship on TikTok, with a focus on users' folk theories, which greatly shape their experiences of the platform.