TikTok apparently censored videos from users it deemed too ugly or poor

Before you make “becoming a viral TikTok star” a central component of your future financial plans, you might want to make sure you’re up to the exacting standards of the app’s extremely judgmental censorship algorithm. According to internal documents recently uncovered by The Intercept, ByteDance, the Chinese company behind the wildly popular video-sharing app, regularly instructs moderators to identify posts from users it deems unattractive, then artificially limit the audience reach of those posts to bar them from appearing in the app’s “For You” section. Similar censorship policies extend to content depicting poverty, people with disabilities, and anything negative about the police or other state institutions.
A spokesperson from TikTok told The Intercept that the policies of suppressing videos featuring poor or unattractive users was part of “an early blunt attempt at preventing bullying, but are no longer in place.” However, these internal documents make no mention of bullying and, in fact, make explicit reference to using the censorship policies to attract new users. After all, who wouldn’t want to be on an app with a bunch of wealthy hotties?