BBCIt was 2022 and Cai, then 16, was scrolling on his telephone. He says one of many first movies he noticed on his social media feeds was of a cute canine. However then, all of it took a flip.
He says “out of nowhere” he was beneficial movies of somebody being hit by a automobile, a monologue from an influencer sharing misogynistic views, and clips of violent fights. He discovered himself asking – why me?
Over in Dublin, Andrew Kaung was working as an analyst on person security at TikTok, a task he held for 19 months from December 2020 to June 2022.
He says he and a colleague determined to look at what customers within the UK have been being beneficial by the app’s algorithms, together with some 16-year-olds. Not lengthy earlier than, he had labored for rival firm Meta, which owns Instagram – one other of the websites Cai makes use of.
When Andrew seemed on the TikTok content material, he was alarmed to search out how some teenage boys have been being proven posts that includes violence and pornography, and selling misogynistic views, he tells BBC Panorama. He says, usually, teenage ladies have been beneficial very completely different content material based mostly on their pursuits.
TikTok and different social media firms use AI instruments to take away the overwhelming majority of dangerous content material and to flag different content material for assessment by human moderators, whatever the variety of views they’ve had. However the AI instruments can’t establish every little thing.
Andrew Kaung says that in the course of the time he labored at TikTok, all movies that weren’t eliminated or flagged to human moderators by AI – or reported by different customers to moderators – would solely then be reviewed once more manually in the event that they reached a sure threshold.
He says at one level this was set to 10,000 views or extra. He feared this meant some youthful customers have been being uncovered to dangerous movies. Most main social media firms enable individuals aged 13 or above to enroll.
TikTok says 99% of content material it removes for violating its guidelines is taken down by AI or human moderators earlier than it reaches 10,000 views. It additionally says it undertakes proactive investigations on movies with fewer than this variety of views.
When he labored at Meta between 2019 and December 2020, Andrew Kaung says there was a special drawback. He says that, whereas the vast majority of movies have been eliminated or flagged to moderators by AI instruments, the positioning relied on customers to report different movies as soon as they’d already seen them.
He says he raised issues whereas at each firms, however was met primarily with inaction as a result of, he says, of fears concerning the quantity of labor concerned or the price. He says subsequently some enhancements have been made at TikTok and Meta, however he says youthful customers, equivalent to Cai, have been left in danger within the meantime.
A number of former workers from the social media firms have informed the BBC Andrew Kaung’s issues have been per their very own information and expertise.
Algorithms from all the most important social media firms have been recommending dangerous content material to kids, even when unintentionally, UK regulator Ofcom tells the BBC.
“Corporations have been turning a blind eye and have been treating kids as they deal with adults,” says Almudena Lara, Ofcom’s on-line security coverage improvement director.
‘My pal wanted a actuality test’
TikTok informed the BBC it has “industry-leading” security settings for teenagers and employs greater than 40,000 individuals working to maintain customers secure. It stated this yr alone it expects to take a position “greater than $2bn (£1.5bn) on security”, and of the content material it removes for breaking its guidelines it finds 98% proactively.
Meta, which owns Instagram and Fb, says it has greater than 50 completely different instruments, sources and options to offer teenagers “constructive and age-appropriate experiences”.
Cai informed the BBC he tried to make use of one among Instagram’s instruments and the same one on TikTok to say he was not fascinated about violent or misogynistic content material – however he says he continued to be beneficial it.
He’s fascinated about UFC – the Final Preventing Championship. He additionally discovered himself watching movies from controversial influencers once they have been despatched his method, however he says he didn’t wish to be beneficial this extra excessive content material.
“You get the image in your head and you may’t get it out. [It] stains your mind. And so you concentrate on it for the remainder of the day,” he says.
Ladies he is aware of who’re the identical age have been beneficial movies about matters equivalent to music and make-up slightly than violence, he says.
In the meantime Cai, now 18, says he’s nonetheless being pushed violent and misogynistic content material on each Instagram and TikTok.
Once we scroll by means of his Instagram Reels, they embody a picture making mild of home violence. It reveals two characters aspect by aspect, one among whom has bruises, with the caption: “My Love Language”. One other reveals an individual being run over by a lorry.
Cai says he has seen that movies with hundreds of thousands of likes might be persuasive to different younger males his age.
For instance, he says one among his pals turned drawn into content material from a controversial influencer – and began to undertake misogynistic views.
His pal “took it too far”, Cai says. “He began saying issues about ladies. It’s like you need to give your pal a actuality test.”
Cai says he has commented on posts to say that he doesn’t like them, and when he has by accident appreciated movies, he has tried to undo it, hoping it would reset the algorithms. However he says he has ended up with extra movies taking up his feeds.
So, how do TikTok’s algorithms truly work?
In accordance with Andrew Kaung, the algorithms’ gas is engagement, no matter whether or not the engagement is constructive or unfavourable. That might clarify partially why Cai’s efforts to control the algorithms weren’t working.
Step one for customers is to specify some likes and pursuits once they enroll. Andrew says among the content material initially served up by the algorithms to, say, a 16-year-old, relies on the preferences they offer and the preferences of different customers of the same age in the same location.
In accordance with TikTok, the algorithms should not knowledgeable by a person’s gender. However Andrew says the pursuits youngsters categorical once they enroll usually have the impact of dividing them up alongside gender traces.
The previous TikTok worker says some 16-year-old boys could possibly be uncovered to violent content material “immediately”, as a result of different teenage customers with comparable preferences have expressed an curiosity in such a content material – even when that simply means spending extra time on a video that grabs their consideration for that little bit longer.
The pursuits indicated by many teenage ladies in profiles he examined – “pop singers, songs, make-up” – meant they weren’t beneficial this violent content material, he says.
He says the algorithms use “reinforcement studying” – a way the place AI programs be taught by trial and error – and practice themselves to detect behaviour in direction of completely different movies.
Andrew Kaung says they’re designed to maximise engagement by displaying you movies they count on you to spend longer watching, touch upon, or like – all to maintain you coming again for extra.
The algorithm recommending content material to TikTok’s “For You Web page”, he says, doesn’t at all times differentiate between dangerous and non-harmful content material.
In accordance with Andrew, one of many issues he recognized when he labored at TikTok was that the groups concerned in coaching and coding that algorithm didn’t at all times know the precise nature of the movies it was recommending.
“They see the variety of viewers, the age, the pattern, that form of very summary information. They would not essentially be truly uncovered to the content material,” the previous TikTok analyst tells me.
That was why, in 2022, he and a colleague determined to try what sorts of movies have been being beneficial to a spread of customers, together with some 16-year-olds.
He says they have been involved about violent and dangerous content material being served to some youngsters, and proposed to TikTok that it ought to replace its moderation system.
They wished TikTok to obviously label movies so everybody working there might see why they have been dangerous – excessive violence, abuse, pornography and so forth – and to rent extra moderators who specialised in these completely different areas. Andrew says their ideas have been rejected at the moment.
TikTok says it had specialist moderators on the time and, because the platform has grown, it has continued to rent extra. It additionally stated it separated out several types of dangerous content material – into what it calls queues – for moderators.
Panorama: Can We Stay With out Our Telephones?
What occurs when smartphones are taken away from youngsters for every week? With the assistance of two households and many distant cameras, Panorama finds out. And with requires smartphones to be banned for youngsters, Marianna Spring speaks to oldsters, youngsters and social media firm insiders to analyze whether or not the content material pushed to their feeds is harming them.
Watch on Monday on BBC One at 20:00 BST (20:30 in Scotland) or on BBC iPlayer (UK solely)
‘Asking a tiger to not eat you’
Andrew Kaung says that from the within of TikTok and Meta it felt actually troublesome to make the adjustments he thought have been vital.
“We’re asking a non-public firm whose curiosity is to advertise their merchandise to average themselves, which is like asking a tiger to not eat you,” he says.
He additionally says he thinks kids’s and youngsters’ lives can be higher in the event that they stopped utilizing their smartphones.
However for Cai, banning telephones or social media for youngsters shouldn’t be the answer. His telephone is integral to his life – a extremely essential method of chatting to pals, navigating when he’s out and about, and paying for stuff.
As an alternative, he needs the social media firms to pay attention extra to what youngsters don’t wish to see. He needs the companies to make the instruments that allow customers point out their preferences simpler.
“I really feel like social media firms do not respect your opinion, so long as it makes them cash,” Cai tells me.
Within the UK, a brand new legislation will pressure social media companies to confirm kids’s ages and cease the websites recommending porn or different dangerous content material to younger individuals. UK media regulator Ofcom is in control of imposing it.
Almudena Lara, Ofcom’s on-line security coverage improvement director, says that whereas dangerous content material that predominantly impacts younger ladies – equivalent to movies selling consuming problems and self-harm – have rightly been within the highlight, the algorithmic pathways driving hate and violence to primarily teenage boys and younger males have acquired much less consideration.
“It tends to be a minority of [children] that get uncovered to probably the most dangerous content material. However we all know, nonetheless, that after you’re uncovered to that dangerous content material, it turns into unavoidable,” says Ms Lara.
Ofcom says it may possibly effective firms and will convey legal prosecutions if they don’t do sufficient, however the measures is not going to are available in to pressure till 2025.
TikTok says it makes use of “revolutionary expertise” and supplies “industry-leading” security and privateness settings for teenagers, together with programs to dam content material that might not be appropriate, and that it doesn’t enable excessive violence or misogyny.
Meta, which owns Instagram and Fb, says it has greater than “50 completely different instruments, sources and options” to offer teenagers “constructive and age-appropriate experiences”. In accordance with Meta, it seeks suggestions from its personal groups and potential coverage adjustments undergo strong course of.
