TikTok is a place of creativity. It is somewhere that people tend to share their personal feelings, dances, stories, and much more. It is a place that anyone can see your videos. Or, is it?
As TikTok became more and more popular and even gained some celebrities, but not everyone has the same equality on the app. After many creators of color, specifically black creators of color, noticed their videos were not being seen by near as many people, they decided to do some digging. Turns out, their videos were being shadowbanned, removed, and not even shown to people at a higher rate than any white person’s. TikTok was censoring the majority of their videos and only some creators were being put on the ‘For You’ pages of millions. They were struggling to have their voices heard. Even when they were just telling their stories.
When black creators figured this out, they decided they would not let TikTok silence them. Iman (@theemuse) began to use the Black Lives Matter fist as her profile picture and encouraged others to do so, too. With this, she and other creators started pushing for a protest on TikTok. This protest took place on May 19, 2020. The rules were that only black creators post for the day. The more non-black creators that were not posting, the fewer people TikTok could use to suppress black voices. Those who use TikTok and wanted to participate were to only like black creators’ content for one day. Paired with this were hashtags such as “#iamblack”, “#Blackpride”, “#blackvoicesheard”, and “#blackally.”
The point of this protest was to force TikTok to stop their censoring of black creators. Black voices have been diminished for all of America’s history. For it to continue in such a public way calls for this protest. At the beginning of the announcement, CNN wrote an article that featured Iman’s video with the rules for the protest. In the article, TikTok admits to its censoring. Black creators are demanding change and this is the first step to getting it. If this first round of protests do not get the change, there will be another protest with harsher consequences for TikTok. This next protest may take place on ‘Juneteenth‘ or June 19th. This is essentially black Independence Day. I have linked an article for a deeper dive into the holiday and its significance. This time span is when creators are hoping TikTok will change its policies and practices and give voices to everyone, and not just the privileged.
I am not black, but I was happy to participate in this protest. For one day, I saw so many new faces and content. Prior to May 19th, I did not realize what I was missing. I am someone who actively seeks out creators of color. Not only for education, but also entertainment. However, recently, I had noticed a huge decrease of these videos on my ‘For You’ page. When I was not actively searching their names and searching following pages, I was no longer seeing people of color other than on my following page, and not even then sometimes. TikTok needs change. People of color have a voice and it is not right to strip them of it on a platform that is for sharing.
Feature photo via https://www.redbubble.com/i/t-shirt/Black-Lives-Matter-Fist-Logo-by-TheProgressive/32401407.NL9AC
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