Over the past year I’ve been reporting what I deemed to be, for want of a better phrase, inappropriate content in the comment sections of TikTok. From numerous reports, I could remember at most two which were acted upon. In late December, I started systematically tracking the content I reported, all of which were initially deemed by TikTok’s moderation processes to be permissible under the platform’s community guidelines.
Disclaimer: From here on in, some content you see may be offensive. There is language and terminology here which I find reprehensible, but I’m including it to show the reprehensible content passing TikTok’s moderation processes. I am not including the videos which these comments appeared in, nor am I including usernames. But all are recorded.
Racism in TikTok Comments
This is perhaps the worst of the examples I’ll present in this article. It uses a word which I literally could not bring to say out loud myself. It was said in reference to a footballer in a highlights video.
This comment stopped me in my tracks as some of the most overt racism I’ve ever seen in any comment section. It had been posted over 24-hours ago and garnered over 2,300 likes from other users on the platform – which is a problem in and of itself.
However, I refuse to believe that in this 24-hour period, no one else reported this comment. Regardless of whether they did or not, I did report it for violating TikTok’s policies against hateful or discriminatory language targeting ethnicity or race.
The result of this report was more unusual than the rest of the reports in this article. Because it disappeared. I went back to the video and the comment had vanished too, along with any trace of my report.
TikTok lost any good will with me at this stage, so I wasn’t giving the benefit of the doubt. I logged out of my account and sure enough, there it was. Hidden from me, but visible to everyone else.
TikTok Allows Misgendering in Comments
I’ve seen plenty of examples of misgendering being allowed in comment sections across TikTok. To make it worse, TikTok as a company has portrayed itself has a safe space for the LGBTQIA+ community by specifically including misgendering, dead naming and more as unacceptable according to community guidelines.
These guidelines state that “Dead naming or misgendering someone by using their former name or gender rather than their chosen identity, or by promoting conversion therapy programs that attempt to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity” and falls under “not allowed”.
Yet, I’ve seen countless examples of this going unchecked.
This specific comment appeared under a creator who identifies as she/her. Transphobic comments on TikTok often take the form of veiled hate. For example here, the commenter would likely laugh this off as a misunderstanding, but it was quite deliberate, as is often the case.
Again, this comment was reported, and that report was dismissed. I appealed the decision, which was also dismissed.
Irish Targeted in Derogatory Slur on TikTok
We have a bit of a “water off a ducks back” attitude in Ireland, but that doesn’t mean TikTok’s responsibilities don’t include derogatory slurs aimed at the Irish community.
The term “annoying mick” uses a derogatory slur targeting Irish individuals, which constitutes hate speech under TikTok’s community guidelines, as it attacks someone based on their nationality or ethnicity.
Given some of the other hate I’ve seen, I wouldn’t be overly fast to say this is the worst of what I’ve seen. However, it does point to TikTok’s weaknesses in identifying content which breaches the platform’s own community guidelines.
This was reported, dismissed and dismissed again on appeal.
Body-Shaming and More Hypocrisy from TikTok
TikTok, like most tech companies, is very good at making it look like they care and that they are doing the right thing to serve a healthy online community ethos. Unfortunately, body-shaming is another area where TikTok speaks a good game publicly, but then utterly fails to act.
In this comment, the commenter makes an extremely hurtful comment about the creator. Some might argue that it’s somewhat veiled, but that is looking from the point of view of an automated system. A human set of eyes should quickly see that this is a hurtful comment targeting someone’s physical appearance – an important point in the context of TikTok layoffs – more on that later.
This kind of language targets an individual’s appearance, which is prohibited under community guidelines, and it exactly the kind of comment that their previous “newsroom content” said the company was against.
I reported this comment, and that report was dismissed. I appealed this and that appeal was also dismissed, meaning TikTok deems this content to be acceptable.
TikTok Allows Anti-immigration Comments
Some more context is needed here. This comment appeared on a video from Dublin Airport where someone was putting a bottle into a bin. These bins are called FODs or Foreign Object Debris bins. They are used to reduce the number of bottles and rubbish that ends up on the runway.
Throughout all of these comments, I do hear you reading it saying “ah but how they said it, how would a moderator catch that”. And that’s the kind of leeway big tech companies doesn’t deserve, nor should we allow them.
The comment is undeniably a veiled reference to immigrants, equating them with “foreign object debris.” Such language could be considered discriminatory or dehumanizing, which violates TikTok’s community guidelines regarding hateful behaviour.
Two similar examples spring to mind, both involving Tiger Woods. Both Sergio Garcia and Fuzzy Zoeller made “fried chicken” remarks towards Woods. It’s generally accepted that these remarks were racist, even if the speakers later claimed they were meant as jokes or taken out of context. What mattered wasn’t just their intent, but how such comments reflected and reinforced broader prejudices.
It’s all social media platforms’ responsibility to understand various vernaculars, context and veiled-meanings to ensure comments sections are free from hate.
I can somewhat understand that an automated system might miss the nuanced hate in this comment. But TikTok always says that why we have the reporting system. This comment was both reported by myself, and when that report was dismissed, I appealed it. This too was dismissed.
Reporting Methodology
Reporting this vile content on TikTok required a few steps. Some of the steps are required by the platform, but others were needed by myself to simply keep track of reports. TikTok’s system makes it very easy to lose track of what was said and by which account.
There is a two-step reporting process. After the initial review, you can appeal any decision with some additional evidence.
This is where my AI-trained model was very useful. This model was trained using TikTok’s own Community Guidelines. All I had to do was screenshot a comment I thought was likely breaching the guidelines, and upload it to my AI-model. This model would then tell me what was breached and prepare the “extra evidence” comment to upload to TikTok’s second round review, including which guidelines were breached.
TikTok’s Reaction to My Findings
I gathered the above and sent it to TikTok in January. A few days later, I had a phone call with a TikTok spokesperson based in Ireland. After reviewing the comments I gathered, they confirmed the content breached TikTok’s Community Guidelines and should not have remained on the site. They also confirmed to me, it had been removed manually.
The spokesperson told me that TikTok was dedicated to keeping the social media platform safe, highlighting that the company had 40,000 safety professionals responsible for finding content that breaches Community Guidelines, but little was given by way of explaining how content like this was missed or deemed appropriate for the site.
Remembering this was just two months ago, it’s even more disappointing to see TikTok undermining that “commitment” to creating a safe environment.
Moderation Cannot Not Be Optional for TikTok
On March 5th, the Irish Government was informed that TikTok would be laying off up to 300 staff at TikTok’s Irish operation. This follows the company’s wider announcement of layoffs 2 weeks prior, layoffs reported to be focused on TikTok’s content moderation teams.
To be clear, this is extremely disappointing, not only in light of my research, but because it’s difficult to see anyone lose their job. Having been through it twice recently myself, I feel massively for everyone impacted.
However, it’s making it clear that TikTok does not see high quality content moderation as a key requirement of running a social media platform. The company spokesperson highlighted TikTok’s automated process of finding offensive content was supported by human moderation too, but now I’m lefting wondering how much will that process be harmed by layoffs, considering it’s obviously already not fit for purpose.
The reality is that social media platforms have a responsibility to moderate content. Hate doesn’t need much oxygen, let alone the abundance of oxygen that lax content moderation approaches offer. While Twitter has completely fallen apart, Trump’s administration has led to Meta also axing many policies and fact checking processes, leading to new or renewed concerns.
TikTok is awash with content ranging from harmless and hilarious, to, as I’ve demonstrated, outright hateful. If the reports are accurate surrounding redundancies at the company being focused on content moderation teams, I’m extremely worried as to where we go from here.
Perhaps there needs to be renewed political focus on the issue, but that clearly won’t be coming from Stateside.
My advice to you is to continue to be vigilant on social media. Report what you deem offensive, and take regular breaks if you can. Resist the urge to stay in comment sections longer than you spend watching the content itself, and remember, it’s not always a person on the other end of that comment.
Featured photo by Solen Feyissa.
