TikTok blamed by filmmaker for allowing abusive comments on video
A video on TikTok about sexual consent has been swamped with comments from men accusing women of alleging assault.
Many of them mention Andrew Tate, the controversial influencer who has been banned from several platforms for his misogynist views.
The two-minute video, from an account with about 1,700 followers, has been viewed quite 1.2 million times.
Its creator Emmeline Hartley says she believes TikTok's algorithms are driving more hate towards the film.
People using TikTok are served content supported a mixture of videos they have previously liked, and on which individuals like them have watched and commented.
TikTok said misogyny was prohibited on the platform.
"Our community guidelines specifically call it out as a hateful ideology and that we are crystal clear that we do not want that content on our platform," said a spokesperson.
It added that it had removed quite 100 comments from Ms Hartley's video, which it said was alittle proportion of the number that had been left.
Ms Hartley said she had found it impossible to form direct contact with someone from the platform to get help.
"We do not have the capacity or the manpower to respond to all the comments," Ms Hartley said.
"I thought, 'what have I done? I've made a movie that's helping rape culture'."
She says she has seen other videos on TikTok that are swamped with abusive comments where the creator is appealing for likes and positivity to help "pull them back from the wrong side of TikTok".
Fictional story
Ms Hartley's original video, Keep Breathing, was 18 minutes long and made in 2018, with funding from various local organisations in Derby and backed by British Film Institute.
It is a fictional story featuring a couple arguing in a lift about a previous sexual encounter, interwoven with flashbacks to the evening it happened .
The characters had both been drinking alcohol, they met during a nightclub, and there have been misunderstandings about how they were going to get home and whether the man was going to stay with the woman.
However, the clip she posted to TikTok in September featured only the pair's argument and not the contextual flashbacks. When Ms Hartley tried to feature a separate video featuring those, they were repeatedly removed by TikTok on the grounds that they were explicit.
She has now been ready to share the context, but says there are still many comments which are abusive towards women.
Although she considered removing the videos, Ms Hartley says she is content that she decided to share the post.
"I don't regret it, but I'm trying to navigate the way to respond," she said.
"Some of the comments are healthy, a pair of people have changed their minds while replying to each other. i feel it's important, it must go out there."
How the algorithm works
Social medai guru Matt Navarra said that TikTok's algorithm functions as a recommendation service, drawing both on the previous activity of the individual user et al. like them, so as to serve up new content with which the person is also likely to engage.
This keeps them on the platform for extended and more frequently, which is sweet for advertisers and therefore also good for TikTok's advertising revenue.
"It means if this content has been seen, engaged with and liked by a gaggle of users who are, for instance , Andrew Tate fans, then it's likely to point out that piece of content to even more people who are that sort of user," he said. "It's self perpetuating."
The creator cannot stop this train once it's in motion, because they need no control over the algorithm itself and there are limited options for reporting issues, Mr Navarra added.
In July it had been reported that Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, was visiting make its algorithm more similar to TikTok's, instead of prioritising content from accounts that individuals were already following.