Is TikTok protecting or fighting racism

Tiktok is one of the most popular social media outlets for modern young people. 2020 has seen an increase in TikTok users due to the epidemic, which has also pushed Asian into the spotlight. Many Asian KOl used the opportunity to produce hilarious videos that appealed to people not to exacerbate racism against Asians because of the Covid-19 in a self-deprecating way. In Western societies, racism is undoubtedly an act of “political incorrectness”. When racist experiences are put on public platforms, the comments are always on the side of the discriminated against. In the relatively relaxed environment of TikTok, people are much less aggressive and can express their Asian grievances against racist behavior more directly.

At the same time, however, some things cannot be ignored when discussing light-hearted topics. For example, for a while on TikTok, concerns about the disappearance of Gabby Petito, a 22-year-old white woman, were often shown on people’s pages. While it is indeed a sad thing and no one wants to see bad things happen to someone, one has to question why no other missing woman of color has received as much coverage as this white woman. This case has sparked a wave of algorithm-driven internet searches. The more our lives become intertwined with technology and social media algorithms, the more necessary it is to try to understand and reveal how these algorithms work. Who goes viral? Who is being harassed, who is being protected and what are the ongoing effects? How does the internet mask and exacerbate the racial discrimination already active in our social interactions?

According to Safiya Umoja Noble,In today’s Internet environment, information access has been delegated to complex machine algorithms that select and sort results for users. People who are marginalised or oppressed are linked to their group’s status and are less likely to achieve personal status.The political nature of search demonstrates that algorithms are a fundamental invention of human computer scientists and that code is a language rich in meaning that can be applied to various types of information.Big data issues include decision-making protocols that favour the corporate elite and the powerful, which contribute to global economic and social inequality. Deep machine learning, which uses algorithms to mimic human thinking, is based on the values of a specific group of people, namely the most powerful institutions in society and those who control them.

Since facing suspicions of racism and a series of unfair initiatives, TikTok has never had a long-term solution. Many white teenagers imitate the stereotypical lifestyles or characteristics of black people or other people of color. When they casually change their accent, use appropriate slang, and display a certain comedic style. Or the recently trending audio of some celebrities mimicking Chinese speech, which is being clamored for by white people who don’t speak Chinese at all, who are unaware of the traditional culture of other countries, but see it as a trend and a fad to gain attention for themselves, what they don’t think about is that what is funny in their eyes is the way of life and cultural traditions that others have always had.

TikTok uses big data intelligent AI to identify big data, analyze what each video content is, and identify what each user’s interest tags are through actions such as liking, staying, commenting, resharing, and re-following. The content and the user are then tagged with a large number of tags respectively to precisely match the user with relevant content. So the more angry people are about racism-related topics, the more attention traffic they can generate, and with that comes more revenue for the platform.