Skip to content
Sign In Join Newsletter
Apps, Mobile & SMS

TikTok Bans LGBTQ Content. Is It Time For A Boycott?

Lil Nas X came out as gay on social media. But TikTok, the app that helped make his "Old Town Road" a summer mega-hit, would now ban the announcement in. Continue reading [https://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2019/09/tiktok-bans-lgbtq-content-is-it-time-for-a-boycott.html]

,   and  Bruce Houghton
image from www.themobileindian.comLil Nas X came out as gay on social media. But TikTok, the app that helped make his "Old Town Road" a summer mega-hit, would now ban the announcement in many countries.Popular short-form video-sharing app TikTok has updated its moderation settings to effectively ban content depicting gay people or supporting gay rights in many countries, even if it has never been illegal there.The rules came as an update to the service’s general moderation guidelines, which also included changes which are sure to please the Chinese government, including barring references to Tiananmen Square, Tibet, and Falun Gong. The LGTBQ ban get's its own section, according to the Guardian, who first reported the change.'an entire section of the rules was devoted to censoring depictions of homosexuality. “Intimate activities (holding hands, touching, kissing) between homosexual lovers” were censored, as were “reports of homosexual groups, including news, characters, music, tv show, pictures”. Similarly blocked was content about “protecting rights of homosexuals (parade, slogan, etc.)” and “promotion of homosexuality”. In all those guidelines, TikTok went substantially further than required by law.'As the Guardian noted, TikTok runs multiple sets of moderation guidelines, including a strict ruleset designed for use in theocracies with strict moral codes, with banned content including “partially naked buttocks” and exposed cleavage.Other guidelines are less strict but intended to deal with locally relevant controversial material such as alcohol consumption in Islamic countries, Kurdish separatism in Turkey, and criticism of its authoritarian president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.TikTok, which is owned by ByteDance, stepped into the hole left by the dissolution of short-form video service Vine, and has played a key role in the rise of several prominent artists, including rapper Lil Nas X, whose mammoth hit “Old Town Road” was propelled to the mainstream after it went viral on TikTok. According to the Guardian, the rules came as an update to the service’s general moderation guidelines, which also included changes which are sure to please the Chinese government, including barring references to Tiananmen Square, Tibet, and Falun Gong.TikTok runs multiple sets of moderation guidelines, including a strict ruleset designed for use in theocracies with strict moral codes, with banned content including “partially naked buttocks” and exposed cleavage.Other guidelines are less strict but intended to deal with locally relevant controversial material such as alcohol consumption in Islamic countries, Kurdish separatism in Turkey, and criticism of its authoritarian president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.TikTok, which is owned by ByteDance, stepped into the hole left by the dissolution of short-form video service Vine.– CelebrityAccess

Related