Khaberni - The "TikTok" platform directed a group of test children's accounts to explicit pornographic content through the search term suggestion feature despite the activation of child protection modes in the application that should prevent children from accessing this content, according to a study conducted by "Global Witness" as reported by "The Guardian".
Researchers created a set of fake accounts for children aged 13 using clean phones and computers that had not been previously used, to ensure the quality of the experiment and the accuracy of its final results.
These recommendations appeared in the "Things You Might Also Like" section within the platform and included clips with explicit sexual implications, in addition to clear sexual expressions in the descriptions attached to each video.
After a series of clicks, researchers were able to access full pornographic content on the platform, despite the platform's usage policy clearly stating that such content is prohibited and could lead to account suspension.
The group's report indicates that these clips evaded the platform's algorithm by placing a frame of innocent pictures or clips on part of the screen, while the other part displayed the pornographic clip. It added that accessing these clips required nothing more than clicking on the search bar and choosing one of the terms suggested by the platform for search.
"Global Witness" is among the active environmental movements in the tech sector, and it conducts a series of independent research on the behaviors of tech companies and their impact on human rights.
For its part, "TikTok" removed the clips referenced by the study and modified its search mechanism in its algorithm to remove the bad suggestions that the study easily reached, and added that it is working on improving the algorithm and search mechanism further.
